The Pecks: Paint a Victorian outdoor chair in a multi-colored painted ...

Marcia was an art major in college. For her, drawing and painting are second nature, no more difficult to do than, say, inhaling and exhaling.

I, on the other hand, was a communications major. For me, writing and spelling are second nature, no more difficult than, say, writing and spelling, which actually can be quite perplexing at times.

Marcia has done a number of paintings over the years that hang in our house.

I have done a number of stick figures over the years that, if drawn on walls in prehistoric times, would have been ridiculed for being too simplistic.

Or, to put it simply:

Marcia has a bit of Renoir in her.

I have a bit of Renoir's totally unartistic brother/sister/Weird Uncle Gary/ in me.

So, when Marcia said she was going to paint a couple of pieces of metal furniture whose black paint had started to flake and peel, perhaps you can understand why we weren't speaking the same language.

My thought was, buy some black spray paint, touch up the bald spots and, voil?, we're done. So, when Marcia suggested we stop at the home improvement center, I was thinking, "What's this going to take? Five minutes?"

When will I ever learn?

As it turns out, and the accompanying photos will attest, Marcia had something much more ambitious in mind. Also, as it turns out, Rust-Oleum? makes about 3 million (I exaggerate, but only slightly) colors now, not to mention a handful of finishes, too.

The result was something I could never have envisioned.

But then, I'm a word person, remember?

A more visually oriented person, no doubt, would have seen it coming.

As she'll tell you herself.

Marcia: I first spied the chair years ago in a secondhand shop. It was white, it was rusted, it was ugly and, to make matters worse, it was cast iron, so it was very heavy to boot.

On the other hand, it was also CHEAP, so of course I bought it.

It sat on our deck, white and ugly and heavy, for about a year. Truth be told, every time I'd pass it, I'd get the heebie-jeebies (Dennis: Something like what Obi-Wan? felt when the Death Star? vaporized Alderaan,? I bet).

But remember, I'd tell myself, it was CHEAP.

So one day I spray-painted it black, which was much better, if not entirely free of causing me the heebie-jeebies.

Early this summer, I was looking at it, and a light bulb (Dennis: LED, of course; none of those energy-sucking incandescent bulbs for her) went off in my head: Why not paint it a bunch of colors?

Seriously, what's the worst that could happen? If I don't like it, I can just spray-paint the whole thing black again, right?

I was amazed -- and no, there are nowhere near 3 million colors, despite what my husband says -- at the number of spray-paint colors available that will work on metal furniture, indoors or out. They even cover rust.

We bought nine colors (in a satin finish). I ended up mixing some of my own colors by spraying different ones into a paper cup and brushing them on the metal with old artist paintbrushes.

You may just want to spray your metal furniture black -- or green or yellow or red -- and that's fine. But if you want to get a bit more adventurous, here's one way to do it (the way I chose, turning our Victorian-era wallflower into a real painted lady).

Step-by-step painting tips

1. Ask someone at a paint store for advice; describe what you're planning to do.

2. Clean the furniture in question, using a wire brush to remove dirt, loose paint and rust. If you suspect there is old lead paint on your furniture, contact the national lead information hotline (800-424-5323 or epa.gov/lead). ?

3. Lightly sand any glossy surfaces.

4. Consider priming the surface with an appropriate primer (again, that's a good question for a paint store employee to answer).

5. I sprayed colors -- I was using oil-based paint, so I'd suggest wearing a good mask and latex gloves and doing this outdoors -- onto white paper to see what they really looked like, as opposed to what their caps looked like.

6. I sprayed on a base coat of green paint and let it dry for 24 hours.

7. I then tried using painter's masking tape to mask areas I didn't want painted. NOT A GOOD IDEA. It turned out to be way too much work for the chair, because of the minute details. Instead, I ended up spraying the paint into paper cups and mixing a lot of my own colors, which I then painted onto the metal with small artist paintbrushes. It was surprisingly easy and covered with one coat.

8. Wait 24 hours for the paint to dry if you have overlapping colors, and follow the directions on the can.

Of course, knowing myself, I'll probably get bored with the colors in a few years, but now I know I can repaint it fairly easily.

Who knows? Maybe in five years it will be bright red.

Marcia Westcott Peck is a landscape designer (pecklandscape.com) and Dennis Peck is not. He is the editor of The Oregonian's Living section, which is a good thing for him, because if he actually had to use his hands for anything other than typing, it would not be pretty.

Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/hg/index.ssf/2012/09/the_pecks_paint_a_victorian_ou.html

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