Plastic patio furniture is so convenient and fairly inexpensive. It is easy to wash off and chairs are easy to stack and put away. However, over time, the shiny plastic becomes sun-beaten and worn. I hate throwing stuff out if it still perfectly good, but the chairs can start to look really bad.
See? Really bad! Sun worn and ugly. The chair itself is perfectly fine, it is just ugly. Fortunately, Krylon has come out with a spray paint that works great on plastic. It is now really easy to salvage your plastic patio furniture and give it a brand new look. First you are going to need the Krylon spray paint. You should be able to find it at any hardware store, or Walmart. It looks like this:
Be sure to get the one that says – paint and primer in one, and can be used on plastic. It comes in several different colors, but I am partial to the blue.
You will need to inspect your furniture carefully. As the plastic begins to weather, it can also get very brittle and crack. You want to make sure there are no cracks, even hairline ones. If there are, you need to just throw it out. It is no longer safe to use.
Wash your furniture thoroughly with hot, soapy water and allow to dry. You need to make sure all the grime has been removed, or you won’t get your paint to stick well. Once your piece of furniture is completely dry, set it on a piece of cardboard, or lay newspaper under it. Spray paint has quite a bit of blow back, so it is easy to paint everywhere. You should also wear gloves. Spray paint drools. A lot. While blue fingernails are in with some people, they looked ridiculous on me and I was really wishing I had worn gloves. It took days to get the paint off, and out from under, my fingernails. Wear gloves.
Begin spraying in long, even strokes. Like this:
That gives you a nice even coat. Be sure to shake the can frequently. That will help with the drool problem. It takes about 15 minutes for the paint to dry. The first thing you are going to notice, if your furniture was as bad as mine, you need a second coat. Take a look:
See how some of it looks really dull? The plastic was so “thirsty” it pulled the paint right in. I had to cover again with a second coat. Here it is after the second coat:
Much shinier! It took a full can of spray paint to do one chair, with two coats I had a little left over to start my second chair. I only did the top of the chair, not the underneath, since it was still perfect. I just covered everything that showed on the outside I would not recommend sanding as it adds more scratches to the surface of your plastic. I tried a small area just to see if there would be a difference and the scratches really showed up under the paint. Where I did not sand came out much better. While I don’t expect this to last more than another year or two, it is still another couple of years of life out of the chairs before they head to the dump. Here is the final look:
I think they came out nicely! Frankly, I really like the blue more than the original green they came in.
Tell us in the comments, your favorite use of the Krylon paint.