Doing a little "home" work
About a week ago, my garage door opener stopped opening. There are a few things in life that are just always supposed to work...and which I won't tolerate not working. The garage door is one of them.
Because I also needed to get the plumber in and the landscape guy in, I made a day of it and stayed home today. Since I was going to being between a bunch of different tasks - staying on top of email and other "work" work, answering questions from each of the service folks and keeping an eye on things - it seemed like a good day to put many, many layers of spray paint on my wine cabinet and finally call that project completed. (Where did the wine cabinet originate? Read here.) Each "layer" took about five minutes to add on and then needed to dry for 15 or 20 so it was a good project to do on this gorgeous weather day too.
I had done quite a bit of sanding on the wine cabinet to try to get it down to bare wood. However, after quite a bit of sanding, I realized going all the way to bare wood was going to present at least two problems. First of all, part of the cabinet - a big part of it, like the entire back - was made out of particle board that gouged and chipped with the sander - and even the sanding block. Second, the interior parts of it were going to be nearly impossible to get at. So, I decided to just give it a go with some spray paint...along with a lot of primer.
Now, you should know that spray paint and I aren't great friends. I have tried a few projects with it in the past (the pretty distant past though) and not been pleased with the results. However, spurred by the spray paint love over at Young House Life, I decided to give spray paint another try.
I picked out some Rustoleum Colonial Red in Satin Finish. I bought the spray paint as well as...and this is, I believe, the most important thing, spray primer about two weeks ago. However, I ended up having to run out again today and grab a third can of color - which I used up completely. There is a LOT of paint on this thing (as well as on me...note to self...wear rubber gloves the next time you spray paint.)
While the garage door guy was working, I moved the cabinet outside and set everything up on a tarp. I actually started on the grass (covered by my tarp) and painted the primer while it was on the grass. However, I realized the uneven surface was going to make it nearly impossible to get a nice clean edge on the feet, so I moved everything to the driveway between primer and color layers.
You can still see some white primer peaking out in the photo above. This was about the fourth "layer" of red paint - as I tried to use very thin layers and allow them to dry for about twenty minutes in between. (It was also at this point I was going to have to go get more paint...so back to Meijer.) Overall, I'd say that there are probably seven "layers" of color...each one really, really thin.
After I finally got the paint looking how I wanted it, and after I walked around the pieces about fifteen times to make sure everything was completely covered and looked good, I let it all sit outside in the sun for about two hours to cure up a little before I had to carry it inside.
I brought it inside and swore I wasn't going to load it up tonight. However, I couldn't resist...so the finish hopefully will handle the placement of things on it, even though it hasn't cured for a really long time yet. Everything seems nice and dry. Perhaps my lack of patience to actually finish something once I've started it contributes to my lack of pleasure with spray paint? We'll see how it goes.
So, here it is in the dining area.
And then a much closer shot...
Now...for the "funny"...you might be wondering why the wine glasses aren't hanging from the little sliders supposedly designed to hold glasses? I never even thought to check to see if these would actually hold my glasses but neither set of my stemmed glasses are small enough/flat enough on the bottom to slide into the grooves. So, while I had planned to use the shelf to hold the smaller "tasting" glasses, I had planned to add some decorative items on that shelf as well. I'll have to decide whether or not to try to find glasses that will actually hang on the inside or leave as it is and just use the shelf to store glasses. Looks kind of silly thought don't you think?
I really love that I also get to feature the beautiful wine bottle holder made by my brother that I got for Christmas last year. It's the perfect piece for the top of my new cabinet. I also love how the red in the leaves of the tree in the photo of the pond in the back yard is pulled out even more by the paint color here. I swapped it out from the top of my bookcases with another photo that was literally just sitting around (it's actually the other one of the pond that's shown sitting on the bottom shelf of the bookcase in that post). While you're looking at the bookcases...I've loaded them up and am totally in love with them...but I'm thinking about putting some brightly colored fabric on the back of the bookcases - or painting them some awesome color. Thoughts???
So, I'm happy to cross completion of the wine cabinet off as the first of the many, many, many projects on my "Moving without Moving" list. Have you gotten your paint on lately? Love or hate spray paint?