I'm mad at myself for not taking a picture of the frames before I painted them so that you all could get a true sense of the difference from start to finish, but alas, I didn't think about it until it was too late. Anywho, I started with a box set of about 10 frames. I think that I bought them for $5 at a garage sale. They were sitting in the hall closet at our old place for about a year until I could figure out what to do with them. Turns out, they were just waiting to be painted.
One of the things that I hate most about spray painting, is that you have to be patient. That's not my strong suit. I want to spray a layer, and then spray the next one right after that. I feel like it take so LONG if I do it the right way. Turns out, people tell you to be patient for a reason. I found out that painting too fast can sometimes cause the paint to bubble up. It could have had something to do with the material I was painting on (cheap plastic), but nonetheless, when I was "almost" done with painting all the frames, I noticed a few splotches bubbling up and when I waited for it to dry, the bubbling flaked right off. Not a good look. You can kind of see one of the flake chunks that came off in the photo above (on the LOVE).
In order to salvage my project, I decided to sand down all the letters and "shabby chic" (as my sister calls it) them all. I used some gritty sandpaper that we had in our tool box to wear off the corners.
Here is the after effect:
In my humble experience, the worst part of sanding to "shabby-chic" is trying to decide wear to stop. I like the sanded look, but I needed to keep the frames mostly white so it would still brighten up the hallway. After a long process of sanding, sanding, and more sanding, I was finally ready to sort and hang.
You may notice in the "before" picture below, our hallway is pretty long. Because of that, I had to spread out the frames quite a bit. I think it will actually be better because then I can add other white frames through the years.
And there you have it. I brighter, slightly more decorated hallway. It's starting to feel more and more like home with each project.
Until next time...
I bought a few spray cans of flat, white paint/prime. The hallway where I wanted to put them is pretty dark. The space needs as light much light as it can get, so bright white frames are the way to go.
One of the things that I hate most about spray painting, is that you have to be patient. That's not my strong suit. I want to spray a layer, and then spray the next one right after that. I feel like it take so LONG if I do it the right way. Turns out, people tell you to be patient for a reason. I found out that painting too fast can sometimes cause the paint to bubble up. It could have had something to do with the material I was painting on (cheap plastic), but nonetheless, when I was "almost" done with painting all the frames, I noticed a few splotches bubbling up and when I waited for it to dry, the bubbling flaked right off. Not a good look. You can kind of see one of the flake chunks that came off in the photo above (on the LOVE).
In order to salvage my project, I decided to sand down all the letters and "shabby chic" (as my sister calls it) them all. I used some gritty sandpaper that we had in our tool box to wear off the corners.
Here is the after effect:
In my humble experience, the worst part of sanding to "shabby-chic" is trying to decide wear to stop. I like the sanded look, but I needed to keep the frames mostly white so it would still brighten up the hallway. After a long process of sanding, sanding, and more sanding, I was finally ready to sort and hang.
You may notice in the "before" picture below, our hallway is pretty long. Because of that, I had to spread out the frames quite a bit. I think it will actually be better because then I can add other white frames through the years.
And there you have it. I brighter, slightly more decorated hallway. It's starting to feel more and more like home with each project.
Until next time...
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