"How hard can this be?" I thought to myself over a glass of pinot noir. "Not hard at all! I have seen them do this kind of thing on HGTV a billion times AND I'm a genius, so...
I donned protective ear, eye and breafs gear so I could live to see another day (although I wore the same flip flops as foot covering over the course of a few weeks during this project...don't ask me about this logic). I looked bad ASS, if I do say so myself. So after a short strut around the garage, parading my awesomeness to Charlie and the dogs, most especially, I went about my project full-force!
First I began to sand the heck out of the wooden slats. They were stable on the chairs and table, so I sanded what I could before taking them off the metal frame. I wanted that weathered grey color GHANDI! Charlie likes the weathered look, I do not. Since it was my project, what I sez goes :) I sanded like a mad woman and saw the makings of some nice wood underneath all that grey. Wood type TBD, but I none-the-less assumed teak for some reason. So, teak it was.
Since that small bit of success reinforced my image of awesomeness, I decided to detach the wood from the metal frame so I could finish sanding the other faces of the slats. No problem! 75 screws later, that was done. Man, my hamstrings were burning after that part...huh. Note to self: good form imperative to painless crafting. Once detached, I had to sand Sand SAND every piece. BLECH! I was dusty, sweaty and grumpy from an aching back (see previous note about form...), but forged ahead determined to make more progress.
Feeling confident from the hard work that I had already done with the wood, I continued working on the metal portion of the table. I used steel wool to hand-sand the funk and rust off every surface. This, my dear readers, was a terrible, god-awful task. I at least remembered all of my protective gear (including flip flops) again, so in case there was lead in the paint I wouldn't get some malady from it. Yay fun mask! Enter stage left: Mr. Marshik. Always helpful, he pulled out his Dewalt screwgun and affixed a metal-scraping super scraper to the end of it. MMMMMMMMMMMMUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR....i was in business! I power-tooled the chairs and table to the best of my ability...and THEN called it a night.
When I got back around to this project (a couple? days later), I primed the pieces with gray Rustoleum primer and then coated them with yellow Rustoleum paint. Yellow? Of COURSE yellow! I love yellow and the 3 shades of blue and 1 shade of green I also bought couldn't hold a candle to the fun yellow. Yellow = Happy Jaime! Each time I painted a coat of yellow on the pieces, I noticed how crummily I did the last coat - there were patches missing everywhere and I wasn't very diligent about reaching all the nooks and crannies. FINALLY, after maybe 5 coats (?) I raised the white flag of painting-ness and sprayed a coat or two of clear to seal the deal. I sprinkled in this painting project over a few days, for good measure.
Yesterday came and I only had two steps remaining before I could call this project complete and reclaim the garage stalls for our cars. I have been missing my garage parking capability. I rolled up my preverbial sleeves (still in flip flops) and oiled each and every piece of wood per the directions on the oil can (geez, I hope this is TEAK!). I lubed 'em up real good, let them dry and bid them adieu for the evening. Man, they looked so much better than the first day!
Finally today I pulled out the ol' screwgun and put all the pieces of the puzzle back together. Unfortunately for me I did not label which slats came from which chair, or the order in which I should put the slats back on...*sigh*...so that took quite a bit of time. Note to self: label slats next time, will save LOTS of time and aching hammies (see previous note SHOULD have applied, but I forgot about it...again). I put Humpty Dumpty back together again and at long last placed her, all finished, on my patio. Mwah!! Bellisima!
Before and After contained in slideshow. What do you think?
1 comment:
Nice work! the set and the glider look great.
Although, to be fair, your friend's exquisite taste picking those items in the first place, deserves some mention. Clearly, his bold and elegant sense of style, that's well exemplified in the items he gave you, provided you with the canvass and the foundation on which your talents can be demonstrated. It's unfortunate that he moved away. We can all use someone with his awesomeness in our lives... Q
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