Weekend Update: Spray Painting

I mentioned in the previous post that I got some painting done this weekend. Thanks to the lovely weather lately, I wasn't able to accomplish as much as I wanted to on my dresser. I would pull it out and prep for painting only to have it start sprinkling, so I would rush it back into the garage. It would then rain for 10 minutes and stop, but the sky taunted me for the rest of the day. I was afraid that it would start pouring as soon as I set up again, so I spent my time on other things. I did paint the drawer fronts with Kilz, but the humidity was fighting against me too:

Bubbles, bubbles everywhere! No joke there is at least 1 patch of bubbles on every single drawer front, not to mention the sides. I don't mind the sides so much since they will mostly be inside the dresser, but the fronts will be heavily sanded and redone. I also decided to tackle a few random plastic pieces that have been hanging around.

I got this plastic drawer unit thing at an estate sale - I paid $5 for the unit and everything in it :) It's a very handy organizing tool for all the little bits and pieces that go along with sewing and needlework, but it's been sitting in my sewing room for weeks depressing me every time I look at it. It's so yicky looking! It's a drab gray to begin with, but it's old and has yellowed slightly with age. You can see it a little here:

So, I decided to give it a face lift. With this:

Oh yeah - bonds to plastic action! Since I wanted a good, strong hold, I started off with 2 coats of Valspar's clear plastic primer - this is some hard plastic so I wanted to make sure it wouldn't flake off as soon as I used it. I followed the primer with 2-ish coats of the Krylon Fusion in White. I say 2-ish because I didn't even get a full 2 coats on before the can ran out! I've never used Krylon before and I was really not impressed. The nozzle is weird and is more of a line of spray than a directional beam, so it was very difficult to control where the paint went and a lot of it blew away. I'll be going back to my trusty Rustoleum next time. Even though it didn't go very far, it covered well enough - check out the storage thing now!

Ah, so much better :) Now it goes with my sewing room and doesn't look like some old man's nail organizer.

While I had the plastic spray out, O decided to give this guy a whirl.

Before you ask, yes ... this is an old Always Wipes container. I've had this for a while (I don't think they even make the product anymore) and have used it for various small pieces. It was between uses, so I decided to jazz it up and put it in the sewing room. I painted it first with 2 coats of the Valspar Clear Plastic Primer and then 2 coats of Valspar Color Radiance Spray Paint in Coral (same color as my desk top).

It's still a wipes-shaped container, but certainly doesn't scream "I once held something for the bathroom" anymore :) I figure it will come in handy for sewing related stuff, though I haven't figured out what yet. At least it looks nice in the room now.

I also got the bulk of the work done on my wall initial. I mentioned it a few weeks ago when I did the primer coat. I have learned something about metal and spray paint - it doesn't like to dry fast! It makes sense now that I think about it, but I kept getting frustrated with this because it takes so dang long to dry that I end up having to just do 1 coat and then leave it for another day. Sunday I painted a nice coat of white in Valspar's regular old spray paint. I let it dry and then Monday evening I masked it off like so:

Which definitely looked cool, but I'm not a fan of leaving tape on things :) I masked it off so I could spray it like this:

The light was awful, so it's hard to tell, but this is also the same Valspar Color Radiance in Coral to match my desk. I did 2 coats of the coral, let it dry, then removed the tape to reveal this:

I didn't poly-coat this and I'm hoping I don't live to regret it. I'm a little obsessed with poly as I'm afraid things will get beat up without it. Since this is just going to hang on the wall though, I'm thinking it will be ok once the paint has fully cured. I'm excited to put this baby on the wall and make it official :)

So that was my weekend of painting. I seriously cannot wait until I can actually finish the dresser - it's going to be so great!