I love many things about our move back to Houston from Phoenix five years ago. I love being close enough to my in-law family for a morning brunch or surprise birthday dinner instead of being a plane ride away. I love seeing armadillos, gators and possums in my neighborhood. I love Mexican food, Tex-Mex food and everything that is bigger just because it's Texas.
I hate mosquitoes, the lack of mountains in my daily view and the humidity that destroys everything from my hair to my patio chairs.
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| Humidity+ Salt= Ugly Chairs |
Not only do we have the humidity, but the house we moved into also has a saltwater pool. Great for the skin, eyes and hair. Horrible for patio chairs. The gorgeous rocker chairs we bought from Cabela's years ago (That lasted through many an Arizona summer) look like a junkyard find. My clearance IKEA table purchased the same time, though? Still hanging in like a champ!
I didn't want to spend a ton on replacement chairs. Whatever I bought was sure to get destroyed by both our weather and pool. That's when I spotted these beauties on my local VarageSale site.
You don't see the beauty in these? You sure?! But they swivel AND rock! And, best of all, they were $30 for all four. (Only two shown here. Obvs.)
After borrowing a friends truck (and her husband to lift heavy things), I brought those chairs home to find that they fit perfectly around my crappy-will-not-die-but-thats-okay-who-needs-west-elm-anyways IKEA table. It's like they were meant to be there.
But they were a little ugly. After washing them down with Dawn and drying in the sun, I went over all the cracked pieces with a sanding block and gently sanded most of the arms and legs. A few pieces broke off larger than I expected, but I was able to sand the edges down enough that I was satisfied no more would come off.
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| Yikes! Look at the chunk out of that one! |
Then I began prepping.
Prepping suuuucccckkks. It takes so much time, and it's not fun at all. I used newspaper and painters tape to tape off the fabric seat of the chair. It worked....at first. After a few minutes, the painters tape didn't stick too well and I found that there were gaps between the newspaper and the arm of the chair. Honestly, I didn't care. If I was using a distinctly obvious color like blue or green, maybe, but Dark Walnut wasn't going to make much of difference, I don't think.
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| Probably should have spend more time making sure the tape and paper stayed down. |
Why yes, I did take the lazy way out and painted on my grass. It will grow out eventually!
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| I don't strive for perfection. Good enough is good enough for me! |
I also was able to use my fancy spray paint gun, a gift many years ago from my awesome BIL. It keeps the paint off my trigger finger, and keeps my old hands from cramping up while painting. |
