“Spray It Pretty” The Fab Furniture Flippin’ Contest

This post is part of The Fab Furniture Flippin’ Contest and this month’s theme is “Spray It Pretty”.

Disclosure:  This is a sponsored post by HomeRight to be featured as part of The Fab Furniture Flippin’ Contest for January 2017.  Some or all of the participants of The Fab Furniture Flippin’ Contest receive product compensation from the sponsoring brand in order to complete their themed projects.  HomeRight will also provide the prize package for the contest winner. 

For those of you who are new to The Fab Furniture Flippin’ Contest, each month a group of bloggers are chosen to participate in a contest to recreate a fabulous piece of furniture. For January, this month’s theme was “Spray It Pretty” and you can find all of the entries here.

We were all encouraged to take the ugliest duckling piece of furniture we could find and make it look pretty again using a HomeRight Finish Max Fine Finish Paint Sprayer .  I was recently home in NC during the holidays and came across this sad little chair in an antique store.

“Spray It Pretty”

Don’t you just love the stenciled crabs across the top!  I’m sure this chair used to sit in someone’s beach house.

The piece was old and the rattan seat a little dried out and coming apart, but the frame of the chair was very study and at only $15, it was the perfect piece for this project.  I wanted to work on this chair for two reasons. First, I have never used a paint sprayer and I wanted a smaller piece to learn on.  And second, I have inherited a small rocking chair from my grandmother that also has a woven rattan seat and I wanted to learn some techniques on how to reweave the seat, so this sad little chair was the perfect project for me to tackle both of these issues.

The first thing I did was to cut off the dry and brittle seat of the chair.  What was left behind was a frame covered in at least two thick layers of paint that were peeling off because there was not a primer coat applied at all.  The top layer of yellow paint also had a sheen to it that would need to be sanded down so new paint could stick to this chair.

Turning an ugly duckling chair in to something pretty

After some sanding down and cleaning up of the chair, I was ready to try my HomeRight paint sprayer for the first time.  I have wanted a paint sprayer for some time but have never really used one.  I practiced on a board first to get the feel of the sprayer.  The board will be part of a future painting project for this sprayer in a few weeks so it was a good test board.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to read the book that comes with the sprayer and to learn all you can beforehand like how to thin down any paint you use in the sprayer.  I also turned to Pinterest for a search on the HomeRight sprayer and read what other bloggers had to say about some great tips and suggestions.

An important suggestion I found is to strain the paint you plan to use if it is more than a month or two old.  I used cheese cloth spread over the top of a plastic cup for this part and it worked great.  I’m so glad I found this suggestion because it saved me the frustration of dealing with a clogged sprayer.

The white primer paint I used for the first layer on the chair was very thick so it required a ratio of one cup of primer to 3/4 cups of water to get it to the right consistency based on the tool provided with the sprayer kit.  This is a very important step in using the sprayer.

After testing how to use the sprayer on the board, I moved on to spray paint the first layer of primer on the chair.  My husband and I set up a temporary spraying area in our screened porch room.

Because I had waited out a few rainy and cold days already, I needed to move this project along much faster before more rain and colder weather arrived that night, so we set up a portable heater to help the primer layer dry faster.

While the chair was drying in front of the heater, I thoroughly cleaned the sprayer and prepared the new color paint.  I decided on Valspar Rolling Seas for a bright new blue, plus I already have another chair in this color so they are now a coordinated pair.

I apologize for the lack of photos of applying this blue coat of paint, it had already started to get dark outside and the images were just too fuzzy from the overhead light for me to include them in this post.

I at least beat the rain for the night and was able to apply both coats of blue.  The blue paint was new so I didn’t need to strain it and only needed to add 1/2 cup of water to 1 cup of paint for the right consistency.

I quickly brought the chair back inside to let the paint thoroughly dry overnight.

Unfortunately the next few days were too cold and wet to use the sprayer outside so I had to brush on the top coat of MinWax PolyAcrylic but would have used the sprayer for the final layer if weather had been working with me at the time.

Another day of drying time and I was ready to recreate a new seat for this former ugly duckling chair.

At JoAnns, I found some gray colored trim normally used in making belts for clothing and welting for upholstery.  It is a 1″ sturdy nylon banding and I thought it would be perfect to use to remake the chair seat.  I also purchased decorative nail heads in silver to add a little bling to the chair.

To reweave the chair seat, I started by attaching strips of the nylon banding using a staple gun.  I started the first row of banding going across the width of the seat.

The next few steps required me to attach new strips of the nylon banding to the opposite site of the chair seat and weave the strips between the first set of strips.

After all strips were woven together, I removed some of the staples from any strips that seemed loose, pulled them tight and reattached them.  I also added a second set of staples to all the strips for added strength to the chair seat.

The final touch was to attach the decorative nail heads to the sides of the chair seat.

Now this once ugly duckling little chair with its little stenciled crabs, has been remade into a pretty blue side chair using the HomeRight paint sprayer.  This sprayer was so easy to use and the paint layers went on quickly and applied a very smooth finish.  If I had tried to brush paint this chair, I would have worked twice as hard to remove any brush strokes in the finish.  With the HomeRight paint sprayer, I ended up with a smooth consistent finish overall.

If you are interested in more information about The Fab Furniture Flippin’ Contest or want to participate in future contests, you can contact info@fabfurnitureflippincontest.com.