Divinely Crafty

I am slowly but surely amassing red accessories and accent pieces for my kitchen.  The piece that I have coveted for a long time is a red rubbish bin. But the price!  Ack!  My budget is not in that range and even if it was I have a hard time swallowing paying over £100 for something to throw my trash in.  Ebay and me are not friends when it comes to winning auctions (despite my use of snipe sites) and all my attempts at a good deal were thwarted in the last seconds of the auctions.  It seemed that I might never get my red bin.  Then one day whilst browsing at the local iron monger’s (where they had a lovely red bin on display for a mere £100 – taunting me as I shopped.) I came across the spray paint ailse.  My initial urge to come back at night and pronounce rubbish bin robbery on the shop windows was quickly replaced by the idea that I could make better use of my being over 18 (and therefore allowed to purchase said paint) by transforming my ugly duckling bin into the bin of my dreams!

I was on a mission.  Of course I had a flare of my fibromyalgia for a few days after I bought the paint so it sat quietly on a shelf waiting for me to get to it.  When I felt better there were other more pressing needs in the potting shed and in our allotment. (Which I really should blog about – allotment politics and gossip are the best!  Gardening in it is fun too.)  At last the day arrived when my body and my schedule were in sync so I set about my task.  It happened to be the day before a big BBQ party at our house. As I worked I imagined myself proudly presenting my new red bin to my guests amid oooohs and aaaahs of my crafty frugality.

Documenting the bin au-naturale.  It served us well when our kitchen was black and silver industrial when it was first purchased. After we moved out of that flat the poor thing has been somewhat of a eyesore and been mistreated.  I scrubbed it up nicely and readied it for it’s makeover.

Next I set up a paint booth by stringing up a couple paint drop sheets all over the patio. The wind was blowing towards the big bush so I tied it up and around it to spare it from getting sprayed. An up-ended recycle bin served as a base to prop the bin on and lucky thing – it was red so the paint didn’t muck it up. (Can’t have my recycling bins looking shabby now can I?) Thanks to the swine flu craze all the masks at the paint store were sold out so I donned a high tech breathing filter courtesy of my farmer husband (which I did not document in photos, but if you do work with spray paint use some sort of a mask. That stuff is awful. Were it not for the greater good of my kitchen decor I would not have used such a vile medium.)

Several hours and 4 coats of spray paint later …. My beautiful red rubbish bin!!! (Fully deserving of all 3 exclamation points.)

Ain’t she a beauty? And for a mere fraction of the cost of the extortionately priced ones. The bin cost us £14 when we bought it 4 years ago and the spray paint was £7. I used 1 whole large can of paint. The gray metal showed through for the first 2 coats and the 4th,final coat gave it a nice even shine. I had no idea going into the project that it would take so much paint and originally contemplated buying a mini can. Thankfully I went for the big can or I would have had to buy 3+ of the small cans at a much higher end cost. (full disclosure: actually I used a whole large can and 5 squirts of another can but that was because some fluff flew onto the final layer of painting the lid. I had to buff it out with some steel wool and give it an extra coat. Were it not for the wayward fluff it would have been a one can project. )

Oh – and at the party I did indeed smile with pride as my guests commented on my lovely bin and were duly impressed with my ikea hack skills.