DIY Spray Painted Vases Part II

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After the success of my Goodwill vase turned designer knockoff, I started eyeballing the tall red vases that have followed us through multiple moves, including going all the way across the world to Turkey with us. They were some of the only decor pieces my husband has ever picked out and I honestly still loved them and their deep red color. But as our style has evolved, they just weren’t fitting in very well, to a point that they were an eye sore flanking our front door. Jarring if you will. So I took a chance and broke out the spray paint again to update them.

I was a little nervous to spray these. I really didn’t want to screw them up, and given that they didn’t already have the texture that the other vase had, I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be. So here’s where we started. Our neighbors have just accepted the fact that on any given day there is going to be some sort of painting/construction/woodworking project going on in our front yard.

I started with the Cement effect spray paint and did a pretty full coverage coat on them. Not worrying too much if there were some bare spots. I didn’t want drips so I was going for multiple lighter coats versus going too heavy to start.

I had a little snafu right as I was finishing the second coat. Although I had cleaned these vases before starting, somehow some fuzz or hair or something had gotten stuck in the paint towards the top of one of them. I had no choice but to use my fingers to scrape it off, causing a big section of gooped paint. I did my best to use my finger to lightly smooth, which was basically impossible. I had no choice but to let the paint dry and hope I would be able to use a fine grit sanding block to smooth the bumps and respray. Which is exactly what I did. So the good news, you can sand spray paint down even on glossy surfaces. But fair warning, it is likely, especially if you have not given it ample drying time (which I did not), that you will sand the paint away completely in some spots. That happened to me, but I just carefully resprayed, trying to avoid overspraying on the areas I hadn’t sanded, and eventually the paint leveled out.

After I felt good about the coverage with the cement paint I came back through with the darker grey flat paint I used for the Goodwill vase. I used sweeping back and forth motions to spray it on, aiming for an uneven, variegated look. At this point my earlier mishap was covered and not even noticeable.

Originally I had an almost black grey in mind, but after I got a couple of sweeping coats on I took them inside to see how they looked in that light before I continued.

I ended up loving them exactly how they were at that point so I left them alone. I think the variation in the coverage and color really adds to the cement/concrete effect and now my eyes don’t hurt when I look towards the front door.

A few days later I scoped out some pampas grass in our neighborhood and put out a request on the Next Door app to see if someone would let me cut some for free. And thanks to some generous neighbors our entryway now looks like this.

Major improvement from just a few short weeks ago.

Now for the next important question. Do I paint the office French doors black like I planned? Or leave them white?

Future plans for this space include matte black hardware for the hinges and door knobs, adding trim under the front door where there was a difference in the new flooring and the old, building a custom entryway table (so excited to share that with you in February), and possibly updating that transom window above the office doors – currently covered in paint overspray.

Products Used For This Project

  • Rustoleum Cement Spray Paint
  • Valspar Color Radiance – Flat Dark Grey (I believe it’s called Blindfold for the color), can’t find a link but was purchased at Lowe’s.

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