Ready for Paint

I spent two very long days stripping paint off the vintage white patio set.

As usual, I was pretty obsessive about the prep work. I watched several Youtube videos about prepping outdoor furniture for painting and most of those folks just took a quick wire brush to flaky paint before their repainting, but I'm way too picky for that. When I bought this set, I could actually see outlines of old paint below the top coat. I would not have been happy with that long term. I'd rather do it right the first time. Besides I'm not someone who needs to change the color of my patio set every season.

It was kind of nice to find a use for the leftover paint stripping supplies. We still have two opened containers of KleanStrip and Jasco and had quite a few wire brushes that had been useless on the wood, but they were perfect for the metal.

Waiting for the paint stripper chemical to do its work.

It is funny to look at the photos of the set. To my eye, the bright metal color almost makes it look like it's still white, but I can assure you, I stripped the decorative parts down to bare metal.

I'm actually a little perplexed about the metal. When I first found the bright silvery metal, I thought the set was aluminum, but it's magnetic. I've never seen iron sets that are silver like this. It glimmers very pretty in the sun.

Now, I'm actually wondering if it's galvanized iron but I doubt I'll ever know.

Anyway, after a quick wash, the set will be ready for priming and painting. Now I just need to figure out where I can do it and not get overspray all over the house.