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Like many other people, I inherited this wicker furniture set from my mother who didn’t want them any more. She asked and I, being thrifty like I am, said “Yes!” before she finished her offer. It’s not because this was a fantastic set. Frankly it’s not my style in any way shape or form but I’m a firm believer in taking something that’s still usable and updating it to fit your style rather than just going out and buying something new. I had seen the set before and I knew it was in good shape. I didn’t tell her I was going to paint it (whoops!) but knowing her, I knew she would be all for it!
What You’ll Need
Fine grit sand paper
Spray paint
And that’s it!
Step One: Prepping the Wicker
This step is pretty easy, you really just need to sand down the furniture especially if there are previous coats of paint. This enables the wood of the wicker to accept the paint better. Another aspect of the prepping stage is to tighten up any strands that have come loose or to completely cut them off as long as they don’t compromise the integrity of the furniture or the wicker strands as a whole. The below image is after I sanded the wicker chair down.
Step Two: Painting the Wicker
Once you’ve sanded everything down, it’s now time to go ahead and paint your wicker. First, I tried painting the wicker with a brush and paint that I already had. This took FOREVER. I would not recommend it in any way shape or form because there is just no way that a paint brush can get into all the nooks and crannies. I eventually turned to spray paint in the same color and took off like a rocket! I had to do several coats yes, but what would have taken days to paint, took maybe an hour for the first coat. After it dried I flipped the chair over and spray painted it from the bottom. Then, I just went back over it with more spray paint and hit those areas that were still white. This took several passes because it would look fully covered from one angle and then you would still see the white paint through another angle.
The overall color and look is exactly what I was going for. I’m not the biggest fan of the floral print but they were free and they are still in fantastic shape so I really don’t care! The new color matches the print (at least I think so) so I’m good! You can sit on them without the cushions as well.
I’m not finished with the love seat, as it needs the bottom painted and the legs painted again but it’s to a point to where I can at least get them outside. I also have a coffee table (I know, a three piece wicket set for free!) I just haven’t gotten there yet.
At the end of the day, I had to use 7 cans of spray paint at about $5 per can. That’s around $35. Buying a whole new three piece wicker set would have been in the hundreds of dollars so either way, I’m ahead of the game!
Hello! I’m so glad you checked in to see how we made our latest project: a towel hook out of leftover luxury vinyl planks!
When we were redoing our bathroom (I’ll be posting that story here soon!) we used a wonderful luxury vinyl plank (LVP) on the floor. However, just through the natural work process, you’re leftover with many scrap pieces that you can sometimes use for the floor but most of the time you can’t because the locking mechanism is on the wrong side or it’s broken, etc. So we had quite a few small pieces.
While we were finishing our work in the bathroom I noticed that we didn’t have a towel rack. Before we just hung the towels over the shower but now that we’ve installed a beautiful glass shower stall, we didn’t want to do that. So I came up with the idea of making a towel rack out of the leftover LVP. You can see the image of the finished product below. Now that I’ve gone through all of the trials and errors, I wanted to share the steps with you!
Here’s what you’ll Need:
Luxury Vinyl Plank – any type will do (just make sure you adjust for the thickness if it does or doesn’t have a padding)
Plywood – cut to the size that you would like the towel hook to be. I used plywood that was 3/4 of an inch and cut it down to 20 inches long by 6 inches wide.
Trim – I used a 7/8th inch flat piece of trim that was rounded on the sides
Miter saw, nail gun, power drill
Paintable caulking, a level, wood glue, black spray paint, painters tape, vinyl tile cutter
Coat/towel hooks and hanging hooks/wires
If you don’t own all of these items, there are links in the content below showing you where you can buy them.
Making the Pieces Fit
I knew from the beginning that I wanted to do a chevron type pattern with the pieces so I did some research to see exactly how they would be laid out on my plywood. After some trial and error I found that 2″ x 3″ pieces would be the perfect size and I could get a good amount of the pattern to show on my plywood board.
Pro tip: Using a vinyl tile cutter (pictured below) is the best way to get these cut down to the size that you need. I don’t have rights to show their product name in the image below but you can typically buy this cutter at any hardware store. You could also use a Roberts Vinyl Tile Cutter too. Also, when they are bigger pieces, you can use a miter saw but you must be very careful when using any sort of power tools. Either way, it’s not an exact science so I’ve come up with a way to get the cuts as close as you can but still getting the shape you want. Continue reading to learn how!
Before using the vinyl tile cutter, I had to layout my pieces the way that I wanted them. Unfortunately I deleted the picture I had with all of the pieces laid out before they were cut so I recreated it a bit with the image below. Just imagine all of these parts hanging off. I just used whatever I had that was small enough to slide under them so they wouldn’t keep falling off completely. Then I drew a line on top of the pieces, using a level and a red dry erase marker, representing the edge of my plywood piece. That in turn showed me where I needed to make my cuts. I also stuck little bits of tape on each of the pieces and numbered them, then took a picture (that I of course deleted…ggrrr!). I took a picture because I knew once I cut them, I’d need to know where each little piece went.
Once I cut them all down to size I then glued them to my plywood board using an all purpose glue that would adhere both the plastic on the back of my vinyl tile and the wood. You can use Gorilla Glue to get the job done. Just use it sparingly as this glue tends to expand when it dries.
Adding the Trim
Once I glued all of my pieces to the board, I then cut my 7/8ths in trim to fit all of the sides by using a miter saw. Our luxury vinyl plank was grey and black so I used a black spray paint on the trim to make a nice finished piece. I just used some black spray paint we had laying around but you could use Rust-Oleum spray paint. Once the pieces were dry I attached them to the plywood using my nail gun and the smallest nail the gun could take which was about 1 1/2 inches. Since the trim is pretty thin and small, make sure you set the gun to not shoot very deep, otherwise you will split the wood.
Making it Look Pretty
When you cut the vinyl pieces down they won’t be perfect. They will be either longer or shorter than what you actually want, because they’re not really made for this type of application or for being cut into small pieces. So you really just have to work with what you get. This is where the paintable caulk comes into play. I used GE Max Shield Painters Caulk as it was something we had leftover from another project.
Once I glued all of my pieces to the board and installed my trim, I then used the caulk in the areas that didn’t fully meet up. You can see in the image below where the gap is. This is why I chose to extend the black paint a little further onto the actual vinyl plank. I probably could have spent some more time using the caulking and filling in the gaps better but I really didn’t want to. lol
Even with the caulking you still have some gaps so I taped the entire inside area with painters tape. You can use Scotch Blue painters tape to complete this step. Once the area is fully taped, be sure and press down on all of the sides of blue tape. This will help make it to where your spray paint doesn’t creep under the tape. Once it dries you can remove the tape. If you get some that does creep under, use a utility knife (carefully) to scrape it away.
As a last step, I installed four coat hooks that we had laying around (I went through a hook phase when the kids were little, don’t ask!). These coat hooks are similar and I just spray painted them with the same black spray paint I used for the trim. I then installed them using my power drill. I could have pre-drilled the holes to make things easier but I didn’t. It took a little bit longer but it came out fine in the end.
All in all, this project was pretty easy to do. The most time consuming was figuring out the size of the pieces and the pattern. Once I got that done it was pretty smooth sailing. Also, painting the trim and just a little bit of the interior of the piece made the imperfections basically invisible.
Keeping it real with the shower soap scum and all!
I hope you enjoyed learning about how to make this towel hanger out of left over luxury vinyl plank pieces. If you have a comment or question, let me know!
Note: I am an Amazon Associates member which means I get a small commission off of any sales that take place from the Amazon links that are provided.
Thrifty Mom's DIY 