Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Oil-Rubbed Bronze Outlet Covers!

I BOUGHT A HOUSE at the end of October!  Incidentally, that's about the same time I stopped blogging.  We've been busy cleaning, painting, replacing flooring, and packing to move - all DIY (mostly by my boyfriend and his dad) so it was pretty time consuming.  We're hoping to actually move this weekend!

I haven't done a lot of DIY projects myself yet, but I did buy four cans of oil-rubbed bronze spray paint with plans to repaint all of the shiny brass fixtures that came came with the house.  When we were taking down all of the outlet covers and light switch covers in prep to paint, we realized that they were all a little grimy and mismatched.  So I decided to spray those too - love how they turned out.  They make the house look much richer.

A quick "after" shot of my outlet covers.
I hope to share better pictures in the future!
A few tips if you're going to do this yourself:
- remove any dirt or grime, then lightly sand and wipe down with a cloth before spraying.
- spray sparingly!  Several light coats are better than one heavy coat.  I have a horrible relationship with spray paint and often end up overspraying.  This causes the paint to crackle - then you have to let it dry, resand, and start over.  Not fun.
- spray the screws too or they won't match.  I poked them all through a sheet of newspaper and gave them all a couple coats.
- I've never done this before, so no promises on how these hold up.  So far so good, but I haven't even lived in the house yet, so who knows.

My next DIY project is finding a way to use up the scraps remaining from our laminate floor installation.  I hope the next update comes in less than two months this time!