Michael and I had been talking about buying and refinishing a vintage glider ourselves to save money-  I mentioned in this Hunt that we had been looking for one that was already done, but they were crazy expensive. Well, we found one!  Michael’s brother was driving by a house and saw one on a front porch and literally just stopped and asked the owners if they would sell it to us.  They said yes!

The reason this one was affordable for us is, of course, condition.  Check it out:

 

 

This one is actually just perfect.  It has lots of rust, but no places that are rusted out.  It glides very smoothly.  None of the hardware is missing.  There are a few small dents, but nothing  that either we can’t take care of, or that will bother me.

 

The gentleman that we bought it from told us that the glider had been in his family for as long as he could remember.  He used to have two chairs that matched it, but they had been sitting in the rain and had long since rusted through and had been trashed.  He hadn’t used this glider in a long time.  He and his wife and friends are “front porch sitters”.  Here in small town Georgia, sitting on the front porch is still an essential part of the social fabric of the town.  I wonder what this glider has heard throughout the decades.  I wonder where those dents came from, and what inspired the paint choices.

He was asking $100; we gave him $140, which we thought was a fair price.

The Design

That basketweave.  I mean, I just love it.  Love it. Although pretty much any design of vintage glider appeals to me, this is my favorite, and I love the inset.

 

 

Although at first I was planning to paint the basketweave and the inset the same color, I’m loving the contrast of the different colors more and more, and now I think that I’ll probably get a little more intricate with the color plan.

It probably won’t be too hard for you guys to guess what colors we are planning on using 🙂

Prepping for Paint

Y’all, as worried as we were about this, it was actually really easy.  Extremely doable for a DIY-er.

Michael started out by giving everything a good scrubbing first.  Then, he knocked the rust off with a wire brush.  He went over the entire glider really well and got off a good bit of the rust and the old paint this way.  Be sure that you wear a mask for this part, because old paint and rust will be flying!

Next he started sanding.  He started with a medium grit sandpaper and the finished up with a fine grit to smooth it up. Then, he wiped everything down with a tack cloth.

 

He has started painting already, but we didn’t get it finished because of the weather.  I can’t wait to finish up and show you the end results!  I am so excited about this project!

PS-Click here for the skinny on painting this glider, and the finished project!