Sunday, May 18, 2014

Color Conundrum

Every once in a while, a project fails. Not a full 'burn the house down' fail, but just little disappointments that make us have to take a step back and approach an issue from another angle. The most recent case of this is the bench that Dad built for our entry.


Don't misunderstand: it's not the bench that's the problem. It has been used a lot, but it has never been finished, whether it by painted, stained, or just covered in poly. I had been putting it off because I kept second, third, and fourth guessing myself on how exactly I wanted to paint or stain it. I finally decided on red and found some spray paint that I liked because I thought it was a darker red color.


I started by flipping the bench upside down so I could paint the bottom of the bench and any sides underneath that might be seen.


I'm glad I bought two cans because one can did two coats on the bottom before I had to flip it over and do the top.


Notice how intense the color is? That's actually not far off. At this point, I wasn't really sold. The color was coming out kind of a purple/pink red than a darker red. Instead of stopping, though, I decided to finish and see if that would change my mind.


I decided that maybe it was just that the garage is not a great backdrop. I figured I would try it in place and see if that made things better.


I still wasn't sold. I think that instead of the red, I needed to go bold, but not bright. It doesn't help that we like to keep the front door open a lot and the colors clash a bit.


I am going to try giving it a nice coat of a dark grey. I think that because it's against the white backdrop and we have the red front door, it'll look like it belongs in the space rather than fight the space. If I could go back, I would probably have stained it, but I know I can't get in the cracks between the slats to fully refinish the piece. Oh well, sometimes you really don't know how something's going to look until you just do it.

UPDATE: I painted it blue....and I'm still not sold. For the time being, I think I'm going to leave it for a day or two and see if I can be inspired before diving in again. Oh well...not every project can be an immediate win.

2 comments:

  1. Why not paint it white and just add a printed or solid color cushion on the seat?

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  2. You can't cover that exquisit woodwork with a cushion!!!

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