spray paint | Hicks House

Back in June we spray painted our vent covers in the condo to match the baseboard trim. This was my first introduction to spray painting and I immediately had ideas swirling in my head.

When Ken bought the condo the previous owner had left an old solid wood mid-century modern dresser in the attic. We never thought much of it and used it to store Christmas decorations and things. However after we sprayed the vent covers and they came out looking all shiny and brand new I got the idea to spray paint that old dresser. We thought it would be the perfect addition to the guest room

I unfortunately didn’t get a photo of it with all the drawers in before we started as we took it apart to move it but here it is without the drawers.

wood dresser no drawers

Here’s a close up of the doors

Aren’t those gigantic wooden knobs gross? That’s part of the “re-style” of this dresser as well. The first step was to remove the knobs then clean all the surfaces with mineral oil to get rid of any dust or anything that was on it. (Who knows how long it was in that attic)

cleaning the drawers

Then we created the “paint studio” out in the middle of the yard to ensure we didn’t get stray paint on anything. We tarped a large section, held it down with bricks then tarped over a moving dolly that we put the dresser on. The purpose of this was so that we could easily spin the dresser so as not to spray directly into the wind. I apparently missed that memo as I was in the zone and ended up covered in blown back paint. C’est la vie.

“paint room”

side after coat one

front after coat one

I did two full coats of the entire dresser and the drawers. The drawers came out less than ideal as I sprayed them with the can facing down to the ground instead of level and some of my back spray from painting into the wind left little dimples on one side of the dresser. Also, something I hadn’t counted on was that the white paint would highlight all of the dings and scratches that were all over the old dresser. However, for my first time I think it came out pretty good and is worthy of its current spot in the guest room.

ta-da

In the never ending work that is being done to get the condo ready for the rental market on that list came up what to do with the vent covers. We could either replace the wonderful almond colored vent covers with white ones for $10-$12 a piece :-0 for a total of over $100 for the entire place. OR spray paint the almond ones white for $6.

Given that option it seemed like a good idea to at least I try to spray paint before throwing another $100+ dollars into the place. Hey if it doesn’t work, we’re only out $6 and if it does hello savings.

So we bought two cans of this:

White Spray Paint

Then Ken got to work cleaning them with a wire brush to make sure they were smooth and there wasn’t any weird things that would show through the paint.

scrubbing the vent with a wire brush

Then we rigged another one of our handy dandy wire drying racks so all sides could be painted without having to flip them over.

hanging the vents from the garage ceiling

Spray away!

Can you see what a nasty color they were? Eeewwwwww See that handle attachment on top of the spray can, that is your best friend if you’re going to tackle a spray paint project. It will seriously save your trigger finger from feeling like it’s going to fall off.

Here is what it looked like freshly sprayed:

fresh coat of white

And here it is installed! (Yes you are getting a sneak peak at some white trim too)

Beautiful!

Doesn’t it look brand new?! Not bad for $6 huh? It makes me want to spray paint MORE things. I have already practiced on an old cabinet Ken got to hang in the garage and hold his tool accessories. I also have my eye on an old wooden dresser that the previous condo owners left in the attic. I think with a fresh coat of spray paint and some new knobs it could be the perfect addition to the guest room!