Happy Birthday to Tom! ....and Presents to Me.

So I inherited my absolute need for bargains from my dad - he is always on Craigslist trying to find a good deal. Nearly half of the items in their home (at least half) are from CL. He even got a motorcycle and a boat for next to nothing. Needless to say, we utilized him to try to find furniture for the house. Two weekends ago, we went up to Baltimore and went around to some of the Goodwills around there as well as picking up some free stuff off of Craigslist. To show you the great furniture we found, I'll have to put up a post in a while. We could only fit one piece in our car and the rest is sitting in his garage until the next time he comes to visit.

Throughout the weekend, he asked if we needed certain things around the house. In his basement, he has at least 3 full sets of workout equipment (all of which he got off CL). So I asked him if he had any extra weights he wanted to get rid of, assuming we could buy the weight bars if we got some weights. Tom has been wanting to start lifting weights for a while, but we just couldn't find a good price anywhere and weights are expensive!

Needless to say, we shoved random weights into various crevices in the car and made the trek home. Dad even included a few weight bars. Since the sets were older, they had some rust spots on them and you could definitely tell they were worn.

So I took an iron bristled brush and scrubbed them to get the rust off.  Even the weight bars had some rust and other signs of wear on them, so I took the bristle to them as well. 

...but they still weren't quite pretty enough.  Tom went to NC State and has a bit of an obsession with the Wolfpack and everything related.  Another part of his birthday present was making him a work table in Wolfpack colors (red, white and hints of black).   So I decided to make the work area in the basement match the workout area. 

Thanks to spray paint (I know it is not eco-friendly at all, but sometimes it is the absolute best option for the project in question), I started to create the birthday present. 

For Tom, I used a matte black, a glossy red and white for the main parts of the weights.  Since the white weights looked a little dorky, I misted them with the metallic silver I used on the weight bars to give them a somewhat different color.  I'm pleased with how they turned out. 

This weight bar went from a gross looking black and rust color to this beautiful metallic silver. 

His manly half of the weights. 

After coating both sides until they were sufficient by my standards, I covered them in a clear spray paint coat (matte clear, I believe) to make them more durable and last longer. 

However, I also managed to secure a set of weights for myself as well, so I had to make those look pretty too!

Ahhh, I love Krylon and their magical colors!  While the Ivy Green color and the Bahama Blue (I think those are the exact colors) were just regular cans, I had to use the outdoor stuff for the pink because I couldn't find the regular kind in the color I wanted to use.  

Of course, I refused to go along with standard silver for the weight bars and went a different way. 

While I have already painted them sufficiently, I think I might still go back and add a sparkly brown misting over the regular dark brown just to give it some shine. 

and the finished products...

This picture makes me so happy - the colors are beautiful. 

His and hers. 

Spray paint is awesome.  

Until later (when I catch up on the last two weeks), 

Jessie

Currently Listening to "Operator (That's Not The Way It Feels)" by Jim Croce