Our 2 “Green Tea” Thrift Chairs

Some of our weekend thrift haul

As if we don’t have a million other projects to wrap up, my chair fetish caused me drag in three more chairs this past weekend. I couldn’t pass them up. I love chairs. I love to “fix” them up. Here’s 2 chairs that we bought for under $3 each. I call these the “green tea” chairs because their color reminds me of brewed green tea. I think this shade only happens to old green things covered in tarry cigarette smoke. It’s one of my favorite colors. I really do like the damage that cigarette smoke does to furniture and paintings, haha. It’s like tea staining everything. So, yeah, these chairs are pretty darn grotty.

Does anyone know how to clean old vinyl furniture? These chairs are filthy. In the pic above, I have washed these chairs with Murphy Oil Soap twice. You would not believe how dirty the water has been both times. The pic is doing the chairs some favors. They are much dirtier in real life. Pen ink marks are on the mid-century modern chair. And the chairs are just so dirty. Any suggestions on what to use to clean these? I keep reading that people clean up these mid-century modern vinyl chairs with soap and water. That’s not really cutting it. I need your ancient vinyl cleaning secrets 🙂

I’ll scrub them again today with Murphy Oil Soap solution again and lots of elbow grease. I’m not really fretting because I like these chairs and I don’t go for perfection, I do like some imperfections.  And the price of these chairs were cheaper than 1 large green tea latte. I’m not losing much. I still need to clean up the wood, maybe coat the wood with Howard Wax to disguise visible scratches and add a nice sheen.

-Victoria

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I’m The Chosen One; I’m The Sprayer.

David and I have been debating the pros and cons of purchasing a paint sprayer for sometime now. We have 2500 square foot of interior, including, cabinets, built-ins and trim to prime and paint. It’s a job and it is going to be time consuming. I’ve been reading and researching paint sprayers. It looks like they are super beneficial for spraying primer. And it looks like we will still have to roll on the top coat or color with a traditional roller for a uniformed look. But, I am at a place, especially since we must move in this August, to do anything that will save time. But, I don’t want to spend lots of money either. We can’t afford the industrial paint sprayers that retail for like $700. The cheap ones ($50 to $100) with a canister appear “cheap” and seem to be for small projects and I am not interested in this model. The reviews on-line vary. We found a re-furb top loading sprayer (Wagner 0515000T Spray Tech) on amazon.com for under $100 ( a new one costs $200) and reviews are mixed. I just don’t know what to do because we have a large space to prime and paint. I’ve never used a paint sprayer like this before. I’ve used a siphon gun to paint and stain furniture. But, I’ve never sprayed an interior before.

PROS: 1-These babies are quick if they work properly. Videos on youtube.com show people priming a room in like 2 minutes. The speed is unbelievable (that is saying that the machine works properly). When priming, I won’t have to have anything taped off, like trim, so I could prime very quickly. We are redoing the floors anyways. 2-There are some available for under $200 and this is in our budget. Also, when we finish I can use it for painting furniture and other odd jobs like that. However, I read that these cheap-o ones don’t last very long and since we have a huge job, it could be “disposable”. That would be a bummer but still $100-$200 is much cheaper than hiring a professional to speed up this process. 3-They appear easy to use, no going up and down a ladder. Many have long hoses and seem to have a long range. At first I was put off by refilling it if it was top loading or a canister model, but then I remembered that you have to dump paint into a paint try every once in a while no matter what you are doing. You always risk making a monster of a mess. I can’t get around refilling unless we have a paint grill in a 5 gallon bucket. 4- Everything has to be primed. I mean we have smoky stains, naked lady murals, and trim painted black. We can’t get out of that.

CONS: 1-I have to assume that the machine will work and that I can use it. I read horror stories about people who spend an hour trying to get it to work. In an hour, I could have a small room primed. 2- I’m sure these things are messy. I’ll need windows taped off and gear for myself so I can breathe. 3- Also, sprayers “run” so I would need to have back up, like a roller to fix these mistakes. I imagine that it would be so misty in a room that I could miss these runs. 4- We still have to roll on color. That’s going to take time. However, many of these have a roller attachment. I don’t know if those are any quicker. 5- Cleaning appears to be a pain. It can take 20 to 30 minutes for clean-up. This wouldn’t be a big deal if we were using a primer but it could be a pain if I was switching mediums frequently.But, clean-up is a pain when painting anyways. We have a big job so I imagine clean-up would only be a daily ordeal, not something that I do for 30 minutes and then take 30 minutes cleaning up.

If anybody has any suggestions about painting, please share. I’ve painted before but I’ve never had such a large project. Everything needs primed and painted, including ceilings, trim, everything. Plus we have plaster walls that are textured. I don’t know what would be better for this. Also, I want to waste as little paint as possible. I am all about efficiency so please be my Watcher and give The Sprayer some tips!

-Victoria

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