Rusty to Refined

A few weeks ago I was picking up some chalk paint at a lovely antique place, when my wandering magpie eyes were caught by a lovely iron gate fragment.

It had a lovely patina, but it was very rusty and the green paint all flaky and chippy. It was a lovely piece to hang on a wall, but mindful of lead paint, I had to try and sand it as much as I could before cleaning and sealing it.

This is where the comedy of errors began.

I thought it was ONE coat of paint, so I prepared myself with gloves, mask and goggles, and began to sand it. I started with a coarse grain to remove as much of the flaking and rust as I could. As I sanded, layer by layer of paint began to appear. It wouldn’t have been bad had the paint complimented each other. But the red, cream, periwinkle, and mint green clashed horribly. Four different grains of sandpaper later, the gate looked like a unicorn had barfed on it. Because of the pitting of the iron, I couldn’t scrub out a lot of the paint even with a wire brush. To say I was frustrated is to put it very mildly. So I did what I should have done in the first place: got paint stripper. I simply sprayed it on, and left it overnight to soak, then scrubbed all I could before washing the gate with Krud Kutter. After the gate was clean and dry, I sprayed it with my absolute favorite metallic paint, Rust-Oleum™ in Oil Rubbed Bronze. And boy, what a difference it makes.

I love the wrought iron look of it. It has a beautiful warm sheen to it.

So, if ever y’all come a cross a fragment like this, and decide to use it for decor, take my suggestion to skip the sanding and use paint stripper. Your arms will thank you!!

Thanks for stopping by 🙂