It’s no secret I love gray.   Gray has had my back for years.  It never fails me in a pinch.  It’s traversed decades of styles with ease.  It can teeter the line between show-stopper and quiet neutral without batting an eye.

Gray is like that perfect party guest.  It’s willing to step up and be the charming Life of the Party, if the party begins feeling dull.  But if there’s already a showstopper in the group, Gray is happy to quietly sit back and let someone else take center stage.  Everyone loves a party guest like that, one who ensures the party is a smashing success no matter what.

So Gray and I, we party together often.

We’re in full, colorful swing at the Dave + Audrey project.  So when it came time to pick paint colors to refresh Audrey’s garage sale furniture finds, Gray stepped in to play the role of the quiet yet sexy neutral at the otherwise colorful party.

I used two grays to keep the furniture pieces from becoming overly matchy-matchy:

1||  Rustoleum Dark Gray [Gloss]
2||  Rustoleum Stone [Satin]

Thankfully spray paint colors have jumped on board the gray party wagon, and there is a variety of grays to choose from in nearly any spray paint line.  If you’re looking to update a piece of furniture and don’t have luck finding a spray paint color you love, you can always brush/roll on your paint.  But with all those up-side-and-under angles of this furniture, those elusive crannies, and the variety of surfaces [wood, metal, plastic], spray paint offered unbeatable ease of application, one-step-paint-and-priming, and durability of finish.

It was a bitter cold weekend, not entirely ideal day for spray painting, but spray paint is a champ!  And it took a total of only two and a half hours to refinish these garage sale furniture finds.

STEP 1 || I wiped down the furniture thoroughly.

STEP 2 ||  I sanded each piece with a rough grit sanding block to remove built up grime, glossy finishes, and improve adhesion.  [Side Note: I adore sanding blocks.  They can be used wet or dry, and rinsed off to remove gunky build up.  They’re also much easier to use than sanding paper, which can be hard to grasp and has a fond affinity for tearing on me any chance it gets.]

STEP 3 || I laid out some cardboard scraps to protect the sidewalk

STEP 4 || I sprayed away.  It took three coats to get all the nooks and crannies and to achieve a consistent finish, a total of 8 cans of spray paint [$32] to tackle these three pieces of furniture.

STEP 5 || I allowed 15-30 minutes dry time between each application, and then waited another 24 hours [well, we were on a tight timeline.  It might have been only 18] before setting anything on the furniture.

 

 

 

In the end, these Garage Sale Finds Turned Gray = SPECTACULAR!  The yellow rolling cart which once screamed “kitchen” now looks totally at home next to Audrey’s petite desk, expanding the desktop space and adding much needed storage.  The storage chest serves as a side table to the sofa, a catch-all for laptops and accessories, and a place to store a few books from Dave + Audrey’s collection.  I can’t wait for these two to see the finished space!

Well gray, we’ve done it again.  Great party!