Spray Paint Magic: Home of the Heart Design

Free Wicker Chairs After Restoration

I can't help myself; I'm into restoration. If I see an old house as I'm driving by that needs some loving, plans for restoration begin popping into my head. Likewise, 

     There are times I cannot restrain myself when I see a piece of furniture that has good bones but needs a little spiffing up. So when I saw a pair of wicker chairs that were sitting on the side of a country road with a Free sign while vacationing, I had to stop and take a closer look.

Home of the Heart Hint: Choose a paint color to coordinate with other furnishings in the room, and bring a fabric or paint sample of those furnishings with you when shopping for paint. And always buy plenty of paint on your first purchase. 

     Dogs had evidently chewed on the wood frame, and horrors of horrors, someone had attempted to glue the joints with Gorilla Glue. I hate GG because it expands upon drying to create a yellow mess. 

Free Wicker Chairs Before Restoration

     The good news was that the chairs had a lot of style and the wicker was in perfect shape. My dear husband purchased some rope to secure them. and we hauled them home 140 miles on the top of our car,  
    Once we got the chairs home, I went to work chipping off the awful glue and sanding the chewed portions of the wood. I love the ease of spray painting, and it's the best method for painting wicker as it can get into all the grooves, so I happily trooped off to the paint store. These chairs are going in our garage playroom, so I felt free to choose some wild colors. But I made a couple of mistakes:
Mistake #:I I bought one can of turquoise and one of purple. Turns out that one can only covered abut a third of a chair. By the time I went back to get more paint, those colors had been discontinued!
Mistake #2: I assumed I would easily find wicker seat cushions in about any color and pattern I wanted. Wrong again. I couldn't find cushions in the colors I originally purchased.
      So I started over, scouring the Internet for cushions I liked. Once I had those in hand, I took one of the cushions with me to the paint stores. I found the tomato red paint at one store where I bought three cans, and a better turquoise than the original at a different paint store where I bought three cans. The results you see in the Before and After pictures. Despite my mistakes, I had fun seeing these chairs transform like magic before my eyes as I sprayed away, and they're going to offer a lot of style and comfort to our playroom.
     Have you transformed a piece of furniture with spray paint? I'd love to see the result.
from Home of the Heart, my best to you.
Linda