Thursday, January 23, 2014

KITCHEN AID MIXER...WHY NOT PAINT IT


Greetings, Everyone!!! I pray all is well with you and your household. 
Ok, I was oober excited about this project..but, wait, I'm usually excited about all of my DIY projects. I love DIY projects because they allow you to be creative without having to spend tons of money. One of the best places I find for DIY inspiration is PINTEREST. You can find almost anything that will inspire even the newest DIY-er. So, when browsing for projects, I saw where one pinner (Pinterest name for those who,well...pin pictures) displayed an actual painted Kitchen Aid Mixer...swoon!! I had been eyeing various colors of Kitchen Aid Mixers but it never occurred to me that I could actually paint it. First, let me start off by saying, these mixers are wonderful. They last for years and hold up really well even with lots and lots and lots of use. Our mixer still looked basically brand new...I just really really really wanted some color, especially since I love adding color to our kitchen. I believe the hardest part of this project was choosing WHICH color to use...Red? Yellow? Orange? Turquoise? 'How about Green' my husband said...'Green!! Hmmm, ok, let's give it a look'. So we both viewed some pics of Green Kitchen Aid Mixers and I headed out to find the right color. What did I find..Let's see below..Presenting 'The Green Machine'.


Color Choice: Rust-O-Leum Farm Equipment Green(found this at Lowes)


STEP 1: So, here's our clean classic white Kitchen Aid Mixer. You want to be sure you give it a good clean, remove any gunky stuff and hard to remove things, like the 'Warning label' tape on the back, use light sand paper to smooth it out.


STEP 2: Remove all 'removable hardware'. I removed the plate at the base. The part in the back which hides the wiring, the metal 'Kitchen Aid' strip (the 3 screws in the back will allow these to come off with complete ease) and the part in the front where you can add various attachments. WARNING, put hardware out of reach of little people..for some reason kids are attracted to shiny little things!







STEP 3: Cover and tape all parts that you do not want painted. For the back part, I simply covered the wiring with a sandwich bag.

STEP 4: Let the painting begin. Make sure you do this in a well ventilated area. This is some strong stuff. I went out to the garage to paint it out!! Be careful not to hold the spray paint too close to the machine as it will cause dripping..dag! If this does occur, you can spot wipe with a paper towel and carefully repaint..or, wait until the paint is dry, lightly sand then repaint. It normally takes about an hour to dry, however, since it was cold out, it took a lot longer..so once it was mostly dry, I shut the garage doors and cranked up the space heater.





STEP 5: Once the paint is dry and has off gassed(fumes settled) a bit, I touched up any places with a thin cheapie paint brush, removed the tape and reattached its hardware.



STEP 6: ENJOY AND MIX WITH CONFIDENCE!!
We absolutely LOVE IT!! The pictures do not do it enough justice as it turned out beautiful..and shiny!! It has held up really well as we use this rascal quite a bit. So, we are extremely happy with our new, eh hem, not quite new painted mixer.