Spray Painted Crib Turned Headboard and HomeRight Paint Sprayer GIVEAWAY!

I am SO excited to share my HomeRight paint sprayer experience with you today! I'm teaming up with a group of DIY blogger friends who are all using their HomeRight paint sprayers and spray shelters to create awesome DIY projects. Read on and at the end of the post you can find out how to win your very own HomeRight paint sprayer and two - count 'em two - spray shelters as well!

{I received the sprayer and large spray shelter from HomeRight but all opinions are my own.}

Okay, so where  to begin? Let's just say that I have been aware of the buzz about HomeRight painting products for some time now. So as you can imagine I was totally stoked to receive their Finish Max paint sprayer and large spray shelter in the mail. I knew right away what I wanted to do with it for my first HomeRight project.

Chickadee number one (who just turned seventeen by the way - gasp) has always wanted me to paint her bed's headboard and footboard white. I figured that the first time I used the paint sprayer it should be a pretty straightforward project, and this was it. I didn't want to start with something that had a lot of curves and detail to it. Believe it or not, the piece I painted was actually one side of her crib. I made sure when buying my kids' cribs that they could be used as full-sized bed headboards and footboards after the kids grew up and into "real" beds. 

For starters, I sanded the whole thing in order to help the paint adhere better. Then I used a primer just to be safe for the same reason. Then my daughter and I got to work on setting up the spray shelter.

The spray shelter is SO easy to put together. Here's Chickadee number two helping me assemble it. I'll admit I had to watch a video or two before I figured it out, but you really can put it all together in about five minutes (although it's much easier with a helper).

Here's a side view.

And here it is all put together. Keep in mind that the shelter does not have a floor to it. But that can be easily remedied with my "drop cloth" solution.

Dollar Store Drop Cloth Tip:

Your local Dollar Store should carry $1.00 plastic shower curtain liners that work great as inexpensive dropcloths for your painting projects. I always make sure I have a few on hand before I start a project. 

I was psyched to finally be able to use my Valspar paint samples that I collected back when Lowes was giving out almost-monthly free samples. The color is Ultra White. I used two 8-ounce jars.

Something I hadn't thought about before using a sprayer is that your paint has to be thin enough to make it through the sprayer without clogging it! In light of this, HomeRight provides a small cup that you can use to test the viscosity, or thickness, of your paint. They give you guidelines as to how fast your paint needs to exit the cup before you can use it in the sprayer. You fill the cup with your paint and wait for it to drain out, counting all the while.

My paint was draining WAY too slowly. So I began adding small amounts of water, a little bit at a time, testing the viscosity after each addition. Turns out after adding the adequate amount of water I had basically double the liquid I had when I started. Because of this, I worried that the paint would be too thin to provide good coverage, but I'm happy to say I was wrong.  

Here's the paint in the container before I added water to it. Doesn't look like much, does it?

Here it is from the side. There are notches on the side of the container you can use as a guide.

  

And here's the headboard, propped up in my HomeRight large spray shelter, ready for painting! I did the project in my garage rather than outside, since in order to guarantee that the tent did not blow away I would have had to stake it into the ground (stakes come with it), which I was too lazy to do. I also didn't want to leave a tent out in the yard overnight, nor did I want to have to take it down and put it up again the next day. So the garage was a good compromise.

Once I laid down two shower curtain liners, ahem, I mean drop cloths, I threw a third cloth over a few large plastic storage bins that I used to hold the headboard up while I painted it.

After testing the sprayer with water to get a feel for it, I followed the remaining HomeRight instructions provided and sprayed my first coat. I was amazed at the ease with which I covered the entire first side of the headboard. I impatiently waited for the paint to dry (about an hour) and then I sprayed on a second coat. By this time it was night and I had to wait until the next day to paint the other side.

The following morning I painted two coats on the other side. I have to say that the actual "painting" could not have been easier. The prep and post work is more than you have with traditional painting (think getting the paint ready re: viscosity, and cleaning the parts afterwards), but I think there's a learning curve involved with that. In other words, I believe that the more I use the sprayer, the more I can cut down on my prep and clean up time.


And here's the finished product.

So what do you think?

Now all I have to do is get more paint so I can paint the footboard. Once that's done I will share the totally finished bed with you. Do I detect a teen bedroom makeover in my future? Stay tuned to find out! And thanks to HomeRight for providing me with the awesome paint sprayer and large spray shelter that made this DIY paint project possible.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my 

 Spray Painted Crib Turned Headboard
and HomeRight Paint Sprayer Giveaway (details below). 

Thanks for spending time with me today!

Don't forget to Pin it!

Now for the HomeRight Giveaway Details:

GIVEAWAY will be active from Midnight ET 11/9/16 thru Midnight ET 11/20/16. 

THE GIVEAWAY includes the Finish Max Fine Finish Sprayer AND both large AND small spray shelters with total MSRP over $180 value to ONE winner!

Enter below and good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For even more HomeRight paint sprayer projects be sure to click on the links at the bottom of this post!

And be sure to stay in touch:

Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest/Instagram

Don’t miss another thrifty,

 DIY home décor post!      

       Kathleen  

An InLinkz Link-up