Thursday, June 16, 2011

Final Rail Reveal

We last left off where we had planned our attack, scrubbed the rail, sanded, primed, and finally we were ready to paint!

After about 3 hours of priming and we were ready for the final coat of paint - Rustoleum's Brown Leather Enamel. I decided to go with brown for the rail (even though you don't often see brown wrought-iron railings) for several reasons:

1) The major theme of the exterior of our house is brown. The roof, trim, shutters, and even the mailbox is brown!
2) Brown should hide any dirt and future rust really well until it's time to refinish again.
3) C'mon - who doesn't like brown?

So brown it was, and after 3 hours of painting, we had our beautiful new-ish brown porch railing!





Exciting, right? It got even better when we took off the painter's tape, moved the furniture and plants back, and snapped some photos the next day!





We LOVE the shiny new rail! (look ma - no pits or rust!) And the color makes the rail blend in a little rather than stick out like a sore thumb like the previously-painted black did, which is a total win-win in our book. Yay for color cohesion!



A couple things we don't like about the color, however, is that now it seems to look a little funny against the light blue/gray painted cement floor of the porch.


Which is a little annoying now, but we have plans to repaint the porch floor a light brown/beige in the future, so then it should fit right in.

Another thing that really irks us now? Our house has a bit of brown-overload at the moment! Everything is either brown or white! (well, besides the annoyingly blue/gray porch). But that's okay - we won't have to live in a Browned-Out House for long: we have plans to REALLY change up the exterior of our house this summer, and then the color scheme will finally make sense! So no worries: we've got a plan, man!

Ready for the cost breakdown of our little Rail Revival Project?

1 can Rustoleum Primer Paint: $10
1 can Rustoleum Paint: $10
1 cheap paint brush: $4
1 oddly-shaped 80 grit sandpaper block: $4

Other supplies (electric hand sander, masks, brushes, mineral spirits): on hand
                                 

TOTAL COST: $28

Less than $30 bucks for a new rail! Not bad, right? Admittedly it cost much more when you think in terms of man-hours (a total of about 16 hours), but since we did everything right and by-the-book with any luck this new paint job should still be looking great 20 years from now - which makes us absolutely giddy with joy! (we REALLY don't want to paint this thing again anytime soon!)

Here's a breakdown of all the steps we took (with links to the appropriate post), incase you're thinking of tackling your own wrought-iron-something-or-other:

1) Use a wire brush to get all the flaking paint off (along with any clumps or drips of dried paint).
2) Sand, sand sand.
3) Prime with a rust-stopping primer.
4) And finally paint.

And what's a finished project without a good before and after?

BEFORE (1 year ago)

NOW

Lookin' a bit better, right? (and just ignore those yellow flags in our yard... like we said, we have plans, man!).


So that wraps it up for our Rail-y Rave Rail Revival (pretty sweet alliteration, am I right?). What do you think? Any of you ready to revive your own wrought-iron fenches/railings?

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6 comments:

  1. The new color looks great, and it will look even better when the porch gets a fresh coat of paint! Can't wait to see what you guys have planned for the exterior!!! So exciting. :)

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  2. Woohoo! It's amazing what a coat of paint can do. Our front railing desperately needs some love (and it's only 3 years old!!!) but I'm partially tempted to just take it out. We'll see...

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  3. FRESH! You guys ruled this one, and it made a subtle but noticeable impact.

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  4. It looks great! Nothing like a new paint job to make it all new again! Your man hours paid off.

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  5. Thanks, guys! We're totally diggin' the nice new look!

    ~Chelsea

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  6. I can't wait to see what you do with all the BROWN-NESS. We just moved into our new home we purchased and it's almost the same, except our windows are chocolate brown instead of the white like yours. It's three shades of brown and I can't handle it. I will be looking for ideas. :)

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