Remember when I committed the crime of the century earlier this week and spray painted our new-to-us quirky coffee table oil-rubbed bronze…and it came up…flat? 75% of commenters agreed, the brass was better. Â I should note, Chris doesn’t care for the brass. Â I think his words were, “Brass and smoked glass together make me gag.” Â That being said, he didn’t like the black either. Â So he and I agreed the black had to go–it was making a very interesting table seemingly ordinary. So I researched and racked my brain and hit the hardware store.
The photo on the right was taken this morning…which is weird because a similar photo was taken last week for Monday’s post…but I promise, the black paint it gone and the table has been restored. The product I used was called Goof Off (I heard about it in some car forum) and there were a bunch of different types at the store. Â I went to Home Depot and there were at least 7 different forms of Goof Off. Â Some were used to take off tar, oil, latex paint, etc. Â My eyes gravitated toward this one:
Spray paint is used for graffiti, so uhh, should do the trick, right? Â It was $6, which seemed cheap enough to give it a try. Â Next time I would have also picked up some latex gloves, too because–my hands!! They are really stained.
That actually looks better than they do in real life. Â So, gloves people. Â Removing the spray paint wasn’t too difficult. Â The instructions say to spray the product on a cloth and rub it on the surface, but I found spraying it directly on the table and a little on the cloth too (we actually used an old t-shirt) made for quicker work. Â Here’s a short video of the process so you don’t have to wonder what exactly I mean by “quicker work”:
Phone + Night= not the best quality video, but now you know what you can expect if you have spray-paint remorse like we did. As for the finish, we noticed some parts look shinier than others. Â Unfortunately, we can’t remember if it was like that before we painted and un-painted it. Â A little patina doesn’t hurt, but if we do decide to stick with the brass, I’m sure we could always buff it up if we wanted to.
You may be wondering if the brass is sticking around now. Â We’re going to live with it while the room evolves. Â I like it. Chris doesn’t. But since we still have a lot of accessories to add to the room, we’re in no rush to change it or decide we love it. Â In short, we’ll keep you posted.
Do you have any spray-paint remorse? Â Or have you completely re-done (or undone) something within the same week? Are you team-brass or team-black, or maybe you are still rooting for something else.
If the table had an undercoat of paint from a factory, so you think the graffiti remover would damage it as remove the spray paint?
I love spray paint!! I do wish there were a wider range of colors. I’ve learned to do several very light coats to avoid drips.
Probably shouldn’t leave a comment as I like the black way better . The brass to me is out of date , the black seems more modern and matches your stuff better. I may be the oddball but I think the brass cheapens it . Im glad I read this post , I’ve been a little spray paint happy trying to bring more color into my house and some of the pieces just didn’t look right so I will definetley try the goof off.
I don’t LOVE the brass, but I don’t hate it. :) I’ve heard of Goof Off but never used it. Thanks for taking one for the team! There’s a LOT I need to use this for…
I love the idea of Blue Magic! But if you want save your hands or just go another way, I think the uniqueness of the table would look awesome painted a color in a high gloss. Maybe a green, a red, or yellow color would be striking with the navy in the room? Or maybe it should be white with the smoked glass?
But I think the Blue Magic would be especially gorgeous in your space though! Good luck!