Hey guys! I am so excited that today is officially post number 3 of the summer of something new blog challenge. For those of you don't know what this challenge is all about, it was set up by my wonderful blog friend Annaliese at
Southern Belle in Training, and for this challenge Annaliese,
Elle,
Jenna,
Michaela,
Gina and I will be committing to trying one new thing every week for 6 weeks and then sharing with you guys every Friday! I have seriously been having so much fun with this challenge, and I am so thankful that my wonderful friend Annaliese invited me in on this awesome opportunity!
This week, I challenged myself again to create another fun DIY project. I have been wanting to do this project for quite awhile, so I figured that this new blog challenge was the perfect opportunity for me to get it done. My parents brought down an old desk that was used by both my brother and I throughout elementary and high school. The cool thing about these desks are that they were given to my brother and I when we were young and they have all of our friends signatures on them from the past, so they are pretty special to my family and I. They are also big and perfect to use for my grad school program! I wasn't concerned about painting over the signatures from the past, I just liked the idea of using the same desk from my past as a child. It felt kinda vintage-y to me, and I liked that idea. Crazy how time flies.
After being inspired by so many different pins on Pinterest about spray painting furniture, I knew that my wood desk would be perfect to use for a spray paint DIY project. The different pins that I saw on Pinterest all said the same exact thing about using spray paint on furniture: that it would give me a much more professional look rather than using normal paint. I also knew that spray paint would be a lot easier and a lot less time consuming than using regular paint. I went with white colored spray paint. It was a hard decision though because they had so many other pretty color choices!
Heres what I used to begin with:
-Indoor/Outdoor Primer spray paint {Is primer necessary? YES! After doing plenty of research, primer is almost 95% necessary when spray painting furniture because it will give your piece that underlying seal it needs to last a long time in the future.}
-Indoor/Outdoor Gloss spray paint {I used a gloss sheen because I read the most positive reviews on it and it seemed to be the look that I was going for}
-A piece of furniture that you want to spray paint of course! Be sure that the type of spray paint you are using matches up with the piece of furniture you are spray painting. {For example, there are certain types of spray paint for wood, metal, etc.}
***I used the brand Krylon because it had good reviews. I wouldn't recommend using the cheap stuff because I read a lot of reviews about people who didn't use good brands of spray paint and ended up being disappointed.
Okay lets go! First, you need to prepare the area where you are spray painting accordingly.
I painted my desk on the side of the street because I didn't want to make spray paint marks on my lawn. You can also put down tarp onto your painting surface if you are using a really nice piece of furniture that you don't want to scratch. My desk is old and already has a lot of scratches on it so I wasn't concerned about marking it up or anything like that.
I flipped my desk over and primed/painted the bottom section of it first because I didn't want to paint the top section first and then accidentally chip up the fresh paint on the top section as I was painting the bottom section.
Next, I started to use the primer product on my wood desk.
I then began to use the primer on my desk. I did it in a sweeping motion, with even strokes.
Be sure to spray paint your object 6-8 inches away so you do not get any dripping marks on your object. I did that a couple of times on the sides, but thankfully that was in the beginning so it was easy to cover up right away.
I recommend doing at least two layers of primer on the object that you are spray painting. Once I had completed my first layer of primer all over the bottom section of my desk, I let that first layer dry for about 15-20 minutes until I did my second layer of primer. I also made sure that I let my second layer of primer dry for 15-20 minutes after that as well.
After that, I whipped out my gloss spray paint and went to work!
I then spray painted two layers of my gloss spray paint all over the bottom section of my desk evenly in sweeping motions, again waiting 15-20 minutes between each of those two layers for the spray paint to dry.
After the bottom section of my desk was finished, I flipped my desk over and did the same exact thing to the top section of my desk. Two layers of primer all over the front section of my desk with 10-15 minutes of drying time in between each of the two layers, and then two layers of the gloss spray paint with 10-15 minutes of drying time in between each of those two layers as well.
DRUMROLL PLEASE....(not really)
......here is my final result!
