paint

I've been asked about paint colors I've used before and hooray! i'm finally answering

I wish I had some cute little paint shop I went to and used benjamin moore or martha colors and odor-free green paint but the truth is our town only has a couple options and walmart is usually the quickest and most convenient when out paint shopping with the kiddies

so here's my story

i painted these chairs (and table) because they were much too boring for me

the MOST important thing I'm sure I did was prime them. I was going for the little-bit-of-weathered look like they'd been outside many a lazy summer to watch kids run in the sprinklers but not so much look like your cheap paint just wiped off hours after finishing such a laborious task

so use zinsser primer. it's amazing. zinsser b-i-n is shellac based and while incredibly stinky, when I first used it I ran up and down the streets proclaiming how wonderful life had become

when I painted the chairs I didn't yet know that this primer also existed in spray can form, so I just used brushes.

either buy really cheap brushes and toss them after or plan on cleaning them with even-more-stinky ammonia

the paint colors were then a little bit of see how it goes and keep going until you like it. so i mostly started with these colors (which I had around leftover from other things)

but then rain lily was much too pastel to fit in so I mixed in some brighter yellow spray paint until it ended up something more like this

then each chair ended up getting a double coat in a different color. and that ended up being my most favorite part about them. go light on the coverage so it doesn't get too blobby.

if you're not into all the dings then go ahead and spray poly over the whole thing when you're done.

if you're still with me you're probably into reading about colors so here's a few more

my living room walls are mostly sage smoke but one wall is streambed. if you are an end table that lives in my home chances are you are getting attacked with one of those blues

also lizzie remember a long long time ago you asked about max's room? well it's just plain old medium gray. most of the things in his room are bright red

then lily's room is the room that still makes me crazy. originally I thought jamaican dream would be awesome but there is a full can of it in my basement showing otherwise. way way too dark and bright. so jade bath was my calmer solution but ever since it was done like a year ago it even bugs me. the ceiling is low and the room isn't very light so everyone in it looks underwater. too much. next time I get the urge to torture myself for a couple days I'm going to paint it milky jade and hope that does the trick.

last, spray paint colors. I use krylon from walmart. it's fantastic but what do I know?

our pink picnic table was painted watermelon. not surprising since lily picked it and check out the krylon color page. it's a pretty princess color. perfect.