Before and after - Muskoka Chairs

We built our house in 2005.
We built our house based on having a family, and accommodating our pets.
We built our house to be a home.
We also built our house with a "beer patio" out front.
Our plan was to be able to catch up with friends and neighbours, to watch the kids while they play...

Okay, we really put it in so we'd have a place to drink away our stress - of having a home...  full of kids... and toys... and animals...

I digress.  On this little patio we have two Muskoka chairs (aka Adirondak chairs) that my husband painstakingly stained a few years ago.

The stain had outlasted its welcome.

I looked up numerous spray painting tutorials on Pinterest and YouTube and decided that given all the crevices - spray paint sounded like the easiest best option.

So I sanded the chairs down, primed them with a spray on primer and then painted them black.

They looked WONDERFUL! 

Total time:   ~2 hours  (not including drying time)

Total cost:    $24.00 in spray paint and primer

Then winter came.
Not a bad winter per se, but a Canadian winter.
This is how they looked after said winter:

 

Unacceptable,

frustrating,

embarrassing

and my last spray-paint project... EVER

I got back at it a couple of weeks ago.

I sanded - a lot

I primed - but this time with a paint-on, exterior, acrylic based primer.

Then I painted not one,

not two,

 but three coats of this:  

 

At $68 a gallon it was extremely pricey.

But I did 4 chairs and still have half a gallon left to tackle my arbour with.

And here's how the chairs look now:

Paint colour:  Benjamin Moore Pigeon Gray

Total time:   ~2 hours  for the spray-painted effort (round 1)

~8 hours to re-do what I'd done last summer  (round 2)

Total cost:    $24.00 round 1

$68.00 (1/2 gallon primer and 1/2 gallon paint) round 2

I guess I really could have bought new chairs for less, but I can be a little stubborn sometimes.

Now it's time to put these bad-boys to work!