Like most employees, I get a one hour lunch break. Since I work from home and eat in everyday, I always have an abundance of time left over. I usually use that time to write this blog, do some volunteer work from home with my church, clean, read, or just continue to quietly do my work.
We recently purchased our first home, which is a big deal. I don’t believe in drowning yourself in debt to decorate and remodel. My husband and I have made the conscious decision to pay all of our home updates in cash out of our pockets. Which is great, but also a little stressful because every time I turn my head or open Pinterest, I think of a new way to tweak and customize our home.
Lately, I have been obsessed with revamping the hardware in our bathrooms. We don’t quite have the room in the budget right now to do the full bathroom makeover that I was hoping for, so for now just the hardware will do (everything will work out in due course).
One of the first restoration projects that I did in the house was to restore the dusty, dingy looking old air vents around the home. A couple of hours of work and $7 worth of stray paint made those look good as new, so I figured I would try the same with the bathroom hardware.
Caveat: I plan to restore the brass trim around the shower glass in the near future but this project is my guinea pig before attempting that project which will be a major feat.
Caveat No. 2: I did not do this entire project during my lunch break. I removed, cleaned, prepped, and sanded the hardware the night before to save some time.
Here are the steps that I took to prep the hardware:
- Remove the hardware from the bathroom walls
- Clean the hardware with a damp cloth and non-abrasive soap
- Dry hardware
- Lightly sand the hardware to scruff up the surface (this makes it easier for the spray paint to adhere)
- Wipe off of the surface with a damp cloth
Overall prep time for two bathrooms worth of hardware was about 40 minutes or so. Maybe I am fast, maybe I am slow – who knows!
Here are the steps that I took to pain the hardware:
- Purchase a very high quality spray paint that will adhere to the surface that you are trying to spray paint
- GO OUTSIDE, WEAR A MASK, and start spray painting the hardware using the instructions on the spray paint of your choice. I recommend light layers.
- Allow items to completely dry and inspect to ensure that you do not need to do any touchups
So, to recap the total cost of this project was about $7 in materials (I already had the sandpaper handy), and about 2 hours of my time broken out over two days. Not a bad investment in my opinion!
Here is the final result! What do you think? Should I move on to the glass shower next (que creepy Halloween music for effect)?
The Lady Esquire 