Rockers to Stain.........Check! Well maybe 1/2 Check!

[MuddRunner]

Well, Wife has been after me to stain our two rockers that stay on our back porch. They have been out there a couple of years and are starting to look pretty bad, they were my wife's grand fathers rockers and he kept them indoors.

So I'm at Lowes the other day with the wife looking for something I needed for one of "my projects" and the wife says "so when you think you are going to stain those rockers?" So I say "well honey, I guess I can work on one this weekend" So I'm thinking, quick, easy, do alittle sanding, a little staining, a little clear coat, and I'll be done. So in the spirt of thinking quick and easy, i'm thinking "Man, I wonder if they sell stain in a spray can" so I ask around, sure enough, they do. So I get a couple of cans of red mahogany stain in a spray can and a can of clear sealer.

So we get home and I'm on a mission. I grab one of the rockers and start sanding it by hand............which doesn't last long because I realize how long this is going to take to get the weather out of the surface. So I start to re-evaluate the situation. after some dilberation with myself, I decide to dismantal the rocker making it easier to sand using my vibrating sander. So I get back to work and my plan proves to work out beautifily. So after sanding until 11:30 at night, I desided to call it quits. So go inside and take a shower, which is when I realize how much dust I am covered in. Then I blew my nose and man............anyway we won't go there.

So I wake up in the morning still on a mission, get back in the garage open the garage door and wouldn't you know, its raining. So not to be defeated, I say to myself, "Hey, just stain it in the garage!" Yeah! Great Idea! So I break out my spraycans of stain and go to town. All pieces look great and I'm feeling quite proud of myself when my wife walks in to the garage and starts screaming at me because in my mission to get ***** done, it seems I forgot to put down a drop cloth where I was working........not good. And the wife is you know what!.

So if any of you have ever spilt wood stain on cocrete, you know exactly what I'm saying to myself at that moment! x2 So I my wife is screaming "how the hell are you going to clean that ***** off the concrete?" I'm scratching my head thinking of a good answer and it hits me, I don't have a good answer, so I did what most Men would do and I start to lay down the makings of what proves to be a rewarding tale and I tell her "well baby, it will come off with a pressure washer, She's replies "that just great....you don't have a pressure washer!" So I reply "well honey, I'll go bourgh your dad's pressure washer" And then she replies NO, you need to go buy one, we need one here at the house anyway! So I say Ok baby, I'm going to Lowes right now to get what I need to clean this mess up.

So on my way to Lowes, i'm thinking about what the best way of going about getting this stain off the concrete and the right idea pops in my brain and I pull up Youtube on the phone and start searching for clues. I end up comeing across acouple videos that give me some inspiration.

So I opt to pass on buying the pressure washer and end up getting some laqure thinner and some Oil obsorbant grainular in a tub. Head back to the house to find the wife madder then she was before because I didn't come home with a pressure washer and she thinks that I'm playing around with the crap I bought. I can't win! So I go to town with the lacqure thinner and Oil Dri. and much to my supprise it works. Now, it doesn't completly get the concrete back to looking like concrete but its close, now it has a pinkish tint to it. which is way better then what is looked like before with all the stain overspray.

So luckily the wife walks out and approves of the clean up! And I'm thinking "thank God for Youtube!". Then she tells me "By the way, I just ordered you a pressure washer online!" and then she says "And I expect you to pressure wash the house when it comes in" It never ends, this list just keeps growing and growing.

So hope you guys get a chuckel out of my stupidity. BTW, the rocker came out great, I still have a couple more clear coats to pass on it and I have one more rocker to stain (OUTSIDE!)

Here are couple of before and after pics, you can kind of see the pinkish tint ot the concrete in the finished picture. HA HA

Later!