Wicker Wonderful

A few months ago Anthony came home with a pair of wicker chairs and side table he found on someone's curb, just waiting for the trash man.  Even though they were a little beat up, they still worked and he saw the potential porch perches they could be.  :)

You can see them right after they came home here...and after I scrubbed them with bleach.  Even after all my scrubbing though, they still needed some love as much of the wicker on them had unraveled and broken off. 

Well, after searching online and in stores, I couldn't seem to find any replacement rattan (the stuff wicker furniture is made of).  So, as is usual in my life, I took matters into my own, cheap hands.  Two things, duct tape and a hot glue gun, were all I needed to bring our wicker back to reality. 

I used what rattan I had from what had already unraveled or fallen off the furniture, but I didn't have enough to recover the legs.  As you can see above, some of them were in bad shape and needed to be bandaged back together.  I went back and forth from using duct tape to gift wrapping ribbon but in the end decided to go the easy way and use the duct tape since I was already planning on spray painting over it anyway.

Next it was on to spray painting these babies.  Since we're in the South, I would've loved to make them bright and bold and thought about a blue but I wasn't thrilled with any of the blues I could find.  I also toyed around with possibly painting them striped or adding a stencil to the back (things that can be done later).  We planted pink and white flowers in front of the porch so we needed a color that would play off those too.  We also played with the idea of just giving them a fresh coat of white, but decided that there was already a lot of white going on on our porch.  Hmmm...we decided to take the neutral route and either go with taupe or dark brown.  So in the end... 

...we went with keeping it lighter up on the 'ole porch with Krylon's Khaki from Wal-Mart.  Cost:  3 cans at $2.97 each.  This spray paint is my new favorite not only because it's cheap but because it sprays in a line instead of a circle, which covers better when you're spraying large items like furniture. 

Tips on painting wicker furniture: 

-two thin coats are better than one thick coat and ward off drip lines from too much paint

-spray each area at different angles (I stood on each side of the chair - front, back, and sides - when spraying to ensure even coverage)

-since the underside of the furniture isn't seen, I only sprayed a thin coat for protection.  This saves paint and time.  :)

So for around 13 green ones (including paint, a little bit of duct tape, and a hot glue stick) we've got some fine lookin' furniture for our Southern abode we longed for when we moved down here.  Now we just need to find time to have a porch date, sipping some coffee, chatting, and reading...not to mention getting to know our neighbors as they walk by.  :)

Next porch project:  pillows.  I was on the hunt for some well-stuffed pillows to adorn our 'new' chairs at Goodwill when I stumbled upon this little stand, originally silver and gold before I sprayed him white.  For a few dollars he adds a little flair as a plant stand next to the door. 

Anyway, I didn't find any pillows that day but I did find some this past weekend at a neighborhood yard sale that are in great condition and $1 each!  One's pink and one's green, which means they don't fit in to the color scheme we're going for on the porch so I'm going to recover them hopefully this week!  I'm so excited about this project so watch and see what happens!

The best thing about our wicker furniture is that we can spray paint them with the seasons if we wanted.  I've heard of people that spray paint theirs every year just to keep them fresh-looking.  Maybe next year we'll try the dark brown or maybe they'll come out with a blue I like or maybe yellow will be our new favorite color.  Who knows?!  It's fun to have options and be able to change the look of something just with a press of a spray paint can button!  Any one else have any re-vamped wicker furniture?  Do tell!