Vintage/Antique TV trays

DIY by DesignWhen we moved Grampa out of his house, we went thru the things that he didn't want anymore.

Ok, really we went thru some of it.

Grampa and Gramma were packrats.  They almost could have been on the show hoarders but they always had cleared walk-ways.

ANYWAYS,  we all took some things that we thought were cool.  Rod and I had just gotten married so we took quite a bit of stuff.  I love old things!

One thing that I grabbed were these TV trays.  They are metal - I almost think that the top is enamel?  Anyone know how you can tell?  I loved them right away.  I loved they flower print and the scalloped edges and that there were 4 WITH the folding legs.

Rod didn't like this:

sorry it is sideways! :(

They were dirty and rusting or something.  Or at least the finish was coming off of them.  Does Metal have a finish?  If this is a finish then it was "Rusty Antique Brass".

So they sat in our basement.  Rod would let them be used for fear of getting all of the house dirty from them - let alone your clothes from putting them in front of you.

Soooo...... after sitting in our home for 10 years (give or take) I finally decided to clean them up.

I took that fabulous Krylon  spray pain in the oil rubbed bronze color (that always seems to be disappearing from many stores!)  I sprayed the legs.  This was harder than I anticipated b/c of the glare from the sun.  The sun made it harder to see where there needed another coat of paint.  In fact just when I thought I was done with those crazy legs - I saw several more spots that needed paint!

Then I taped around the actual tray.  See it had this cute little lip of the enamel around the bottom.  It was a wee bit difficult to put the tape on b/c of the scallops and I know it wasn't perfect....but did you see how beat up these things are?  They can't get much worse!   :)

So then I painted the bottoms of the trays with the same Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint.  You can see the edges of the blue tape in the pic above.

Then when that dried, I took off the tape and sprayed a layer of clear enamel "paint" on the front to help protect those pretty flowers.

Here is my model showing off how nice the bottom of trays look.

Now we can use them all over the house!  Well, I still have gotta find replacement feet for the legs.  :)

Linking up with

Restore Interiors
Not Just a Housewife
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