Friday, September 25, 2009

A Little Elbow Grease

We have 4 metal railing around our house that have seen better days. Who knows what they originally looked like because you can tell they have been painted several times over the years. They are white and rusty, and have paint chipping off all over them. I figured we would just end up replacing them with new wrought iron, but the other day I thought I would try and see how well I could revive them. I sanded the railings down and used a black rust reformer spray paint that chemical reacts with the rust in-order to turn it into a solid. A-lot of elbow grease and six spray paint cans later I had railing that looked as good as new. We will see how they hold up this winter, but if they do I will have saved myself a couple hundred dollars at least in new wrought iron. I have only done the railing out front and the one to the basement, and I think I will wait to do the balcony and garage railings next spring. I still have a couple spots to touch up, but over all I think it looks great. Now all I have to do is paint the shutters and repaint the front door and wood trim. I am counting the months down until we can rip out the" white trash" chain-link fence too. I can not stand the way it looks. We are either going to put up more black wrought iron with a little gate to the basement entrance or do a picket vinyl that will match the yard fence we are going to put in. Are outdoor projects are slowly coming along. Are biggest projects for out front will be replacing the driveway and fixing up the concrete porch. We are still looking into what we want to do, and have mostly been looking into and planning out what we want to do so we can start right away next spring. I am really looking forward to planting and landscaping next spring if all goes as planned. Here are some before and after pictures.





1 comments:

JulieB said...

It looks great! Cameron just did our railing and door black as well, what a difference it makes!