Finishing Touches on Refinished Furniture

Aaron and I have finally gotten to start working on the hardware for the refinished furniture!  If you remember, originally we were going to buy new hardware because one backplate was missing.  We came up with a solution where we just won't put backplates on the handles on the nightstands.  Since we would be using the hardware we already had, that meant figuring out how we wanted to refinish the hardware!  We wanted something silver/gray in color without being too shiny/metallic (e.g., we liked something that looked like satin nickel rather than chrome).

We went to Home Depot to check out the options.  They had a selection of metallic spray paints... We checked out a variety of colors and then I noticed that they had some that would give a hammered finish.  I liked that the hammered finish would look more vintage which would match the look of the furniture; plus, the hammered finish means you can cover imperfections easily! 

Anyway, the product was Rust-Oleum Universal Hammered Spray Paint in Silver.  According to the product, it is specifically formulated to work on all kinds of surfaces including wood, plastic, metal, brick, concrete and even vinyl.  You can spray at any angle and it is fade and chip resistant as well as a rust preventative.  It sounded exactly like what we needed...

The instructions simply said to remove loose paint and rust with a wire brush or sandpaper, to lightly sand glossy surfaces, clean, and let dry before painting.  Beyond that, take the usual precautions, keep the can a bit away from the object, and use a back-and-forth sweeping motion.  Nothing crazy here...

So this past Sunday, Aaron and I got to work on the hardware.  We took all the screws out and separated the handles or pulls from the backplates.  We then used a Scotch-Brite purple pad (kind-of like a cross between steel wool and a sponge) to clean up the handles, pulls, and backplates.  It took a lot of elbow-grease and a considerable amount of time, but we got off as much of the discolorations and old finish as possible.  We made sure to smooth out any rough spots as well.

Here's a "Before" and "After" of the handles - the bottom is "Before" and the top is "After" we cleaned it up!

My dad came out to assist us; Aaron and I were still working on smoothing things out so my dad said he would work on the spray-painting.  He started with one handle to make sure we'd like the look of the paint.  It looked great, so he finished spraying all the hardware we had ready.  He got through about half of the hardware when he ran out of spray paint.  Lesson learned: there is not much paint in these Rust-Oleum cans!  The can was about $7 so it's a bit expensive, but I guess that's what you get when you want a metallic paint.  Anyway, given how much we are saving over buying new hardware, I'll grab a second $7 bottle...  In the end, we will spend $14 on supplies to redo the hardware...  We would have likely spent $150 on new hardware! 

This was about 1/3 of the hardware after being spray painted.

Anyway, we went back on Wednesday night with a new can of spray paint.  We were able to paint more of the hardware; some of the pulls need painted on both sides so we need to wait for the first side to dry but my dad will finish them up when the first side is dry.  Once everything is dry, we can finally put everything onto furniture!  And, as you know from last Thursday's post, we put the last coat of paint onto the furniture on last Wednesday as well so we are finally (almost) done!!  Yay!  (Photos of the finished hardware on the finished furniture will coming up in another post...)

Anyway, I started summarizing the cost of the refinishing, so I'll just review a bit...  In terms of sandpaper, we may have spent $10 and that is probably an exaggeration.  In terms of primer, we only needed one can so that was $8.  In terms of paint for the furniture, we will need to break into the second can for the last coat of pain (so we almost got away with only one can) so that's $16.   In terms of paint for the hardware, we will need two cans which will be $14.  And, let's not forget - I originally paid $125 for the furniture.  That means that we paid $173 for the finished furniture!  To finish the bedroom, we paid $70 for a headboard, $37 for a bedframe, and $499 for the mattress and boxspring.  All together, we spent only $779 to furnish our entire bedroom in new (or newly refinished) furniture!