Today I’m thrilled to welcome Rosanna Hinde to the blog in a guest post about how to make your grandma’s old stand mixer look fresh and awesome. This is totally relevant to me as I keep finding cool vintage treasures in the process of cleaning out my grandparents’ house. I love their stuff but I don’t want my whole house to look straight out of the 50’s. This is a fabulous and easy way to add some style and flair to a vintage appliance. Thank you Rosanna!
I’m not a hard-core baker. I like to bake, but I hate washing dishes, and my counter space is limited. Plus, I am cheap. This means I want a stand-mixer, but I don’t want to pay for it, clean it, or find the space for it. But one day a friend said she had a used mixer for sale for $60. It’s a vintage mixer, a “lovely” faded yellow. “Lovely” isn’t the word I really want to use here, if you know what I mean.
Once I started using the mixer, I knew it was a keeper. But what to do with this faded yellow? I mean, it’s depressing to use a mixer that’s so… “lovely.”
I knew what I was going to do with it the moment I saw it. I kept ignoring that crazy “you can do it!” voice in the back of my head, but it wouldn’t shut up. “Spray paint it!”, the voice said. “You can do it!”
Sometimes you just have to give in to the voices in your head to make them go away. Or you can medicate. I chose giving in.
Here’s how I gave my KitchenAid mixer a make-over:
Step 1: Scrub it clean. I used a DIY granite cleaner (dish soap, water and rubbing alcohol) and a Magic Eraser. Man, I love those things!
Step 2: Tape off the metal trim with a nice painters tape, and hide your cord in a Ziploc bag. Tape off any part of the cord that is still exposed. Trust me on this one. I didn’t, and I was scrubbing paint off the upper part of the cord for a while.
Step 3: Use an Exact-o knife or razor blade to trim off excess tape. Don’t know where to start with the blade? Punch your fingernail into the tape, and that’s where you start!
Step 4: Spray paint 3 coats, about 45-60 mins apart. Use a fan in a well-ventilated area, but somewhere there’s not a lot of dust. Don’t forget the underside of the mixer arm!
Step 5: Remove tape. Clean up your overspray with nail polish remover and a Q-tip.
Step 6: Stand back and admire your work of art!
Please note, do NOT, I repeat: DO NOT go back and spray with a coat of clear varnish. I did this the following day and immediately the red paint began to pucker up and crackle. I could’ve cried. But I’m not the crying type, AND I knew when I started this project that I might ruin it… and I was okay with that. I guess I still am. More than anything, I realized I CAN do this. Guess those little voices in my head are pretty useful after all!
