a little spray goes a long way

I'm a bit more into home-related crafty things now that we've bought a house, and one thing that's been catching my eye a lot on various blogs is repurposing thrift store or Craigslist finds with a new coat of paint (a couple prime examples from Little Green Notebook: part 1, part 2). When we got a spiffy new storm door, our mailbox and porch light looked a little dingy in comparison, so I figured for the $3 cost of a can of spray paint, it couldn't hurt....

I've not really done spray painting before, so my technique could probably be a bit better (spraying more evenly, holding the can a little further away from the object to avoid puddling) if you really look at these closely. But it was totally worth it - they now match (previously one was black and the other gold) and look updated, and it was super cheap, pretty easy, and really didn't take much time. It probably took more time to disassemble and clean the light fixture than to paint it.

(See here for the before look.)

This seems like a pretty "duh" project, but repainting things besides walls just wasn't really on my radar for some reason. Part of the reason was that I've really only found junk at thrift stores or garage sales - it definitely is a skill to see potential in old furniture, mirrors, etc., but I've tried to hone this skill and still only find junk. I'm blaming the local thrift stores. But sprucing up fixtures around the house is a different category - the items are already here! And now I'm scheming up some more, starting with the back porch light fixture.

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