Spray painting cribs

LiveNLove44

I posted this on the crafty moms board, but I'm trying to cast a wide net! Can anyone here offer experienced input? I am not innately driven to be crafty, but we acquired a crib for our first baby who is due in September, and we want to paint it. There are so many conflicting opinions about spray painting a crib with babysafe paint. Does anyone here have any experience with this? Are there any BTDT moms who have done it and who have any tips? TIA!!

Shanmarie1083

We painted our crib, and after taking my usual sand, prime, paint routine it still did not look very good. You could still see the primer through the paint, even after several coats. I finally broke down and bought a paint sprayer and it made a world of difference. The finish was even and smooth compared to painting with a roller and a brush. It was very labor intensive, especially for being 26 weeks pregnant and between the railings was a real b!tch. I doubt that I would ever do it again, but i'm pleased with how it turned out. We painted ours a raspberry pink color and it really pops in the room. 

We used latex Valspar No VOC paint along with a No VOC top coat. I will try to post a picture when I get back to my computer (bumping from my iPad).  

yellowapples

I really can't speak to spray painting cribs, I've only spray painted a small bookshelf before but it turned out fine. I sprayed a clear coat over it and have had no flaking. That would be my main worry with spray painting a crib - you have to expect LOs mouth to be all over the crib & any risk of paint flaking would personally skeeve me out.

We just got done hand-painting 3 pieces for our nursery. A side table, dresser & bookshelf. We used this primer that required no sanding. 

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Zinsser-Cover-Stain-1-Gal-High-Hide-Primer-203292/202454918#.Ua4zo9iommU

You could easily get away with getting a quart of it for less than $10. Just an FYI, this stuff is oil-based, so your hubby would need to do the priming part if you don't have a respirator mask. We did 2 coats primer, 2 coats paint, 2 coats polycrylic topcoat. You could skip the topcoat & just get a semi-gloss or glossy paint if you aren't all paranoid like me.

August & After

We are actually in the process of doing this right now!   We had a light oak crib that my sister gave us, and we wanted white.  So I found this blog post: 

https://alittleofthis---alittleofthat.blogspot.com/2011/04/nursery-reveal-part-1.html?m=1

Specifics on spray painting furniture here:

 https://alittleofthis---alittleofthat.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-spray-paint-furniture.html

Overall, it's been relatively easy.  Labor intensive though.  We started working on it last Saturday.  We used the spray primer (ended up needing about 9 cans of primer and 9 cans of spray paint, not 6 each like her instructions).  My husband did most of the spraying, but I was there to critique (hah!) and supervise from a few steps back (with a mask on of course).

So last Saturday we spray primed as much as we could, sanded down on Sunday.  Found spots we missed so we had to spray more primer on.  Monday night we sanded down some more and started spray painting.  Same on Tuesday night, finishing up some pieces and touching up others.  Then Thursday, Friday, Saturday and today, we've been sealing it.  Her blog post doesn't say this, but we ended up sanding down a bit after the first coat of sealer, we could feel some rough spots from the spray paint.  I suspect probably tomorrow night will be our last sealing coat.  We finished a couple of the pieces and found that 4 coats left the finish very smooth and felt fully sealed.   You need about 2 hours between flipping the pieces to do the other side to seal, and sometimes we let 24 hours go by before we seal again.  Just kind of depended on timing for us, but also wanted the coats to fully cure before moving on.

If you have other questions, let me know.  I'm very pleased with the process and the finished look on the pieces we have fully sealed.  There have been a few little pieces here and there that got scuffed during the process and they are in spots that can't be seen - and we're both over the process.  We went from being perfectionists to thinking "the kid isn't going to care if there is a chip of paint missing from the back of the crib"...  

Overall, glad we did it AND only spent about $70 total in supplies to refinish a very nice crib.  We do still need to get a mattress for it, but that will be in time.