Gates painted!

I'd had about 5 days without a paint brush in my hand and was starting to get withdrawal so I decided to do a bit of painting.  We have wrought iron gates on the driveway (sounds post doesn't it ... its not) they aren't those automatic ones ...shame.  Anyway they were looking pretty rubbish, rusty, red and black.  So I had some black metal paint and bought some primer from Wilko only £5 so definitely a bargain DIY job. 

 

I lifted gate number one into the garage and started off getting rid of all the rust and flaky paint.  Unfortunately the only wire brush I had was perfectly sized for a borrower so it was slow going.  Used sand paper as well.  Some before shots

 

 

 

 

And after a couple of days of doing a bit when a spare minute arose I thought enough get the paint out.  The primer went on really easy.  I did get covered in it and in my hair too but that was more trying to balance an unwieldy gate, covered in paint and with one finger.  The second gate wasn't as rusty so didn't take as much preparation and this time lesson learned I positioned it a bit better with wood blocks under it so not as much paint got on me. 

 

 

 

To cover all the red oxide took two coats of black.  The first coat took the time (about an hour per gate), the second coat was a lot quicker and job done.  They look much better and will last longer.  Ideally I would have used a matt black paint but I had a full tin of black gloss for metal so couldn't justify buying more paint.  So another job done to cross off the huge to do list.

 

 

 

 

Must go and do something useful like tidy the front room as we are getting a man round to look at our chimney tonight for a solid fuel stove.  Maybe this year we won't freeze. 

Bye for now x