Curb Appeal

I never actually looked at our curbs until after we moved in. I didn't notice them even a little until someone pointed them out to me. As soon as I realized the burnt orange horror that was on our curb I knew I had to take action. I took some pictures along the way so maybe I can help someone else with an icky longhorn (or any unwanted mascot image) dilemma in the future.

0. Rue the day the previous owners made this terrible decision.

1. Tape off the border in the size you want the background to be.

2. Paint the curb! I used a tiny bit of a quart of RustOleum Protective Enamel, an oil-based paint, in Matte Black.

3. While the background color is drying, print out your numbers/symbols (Google image search is your friend here--just search for "stencil numbers") in the size you want and cut them out with an X-Acto knife. I did this on a cardboard box so I wouldn't ruin my surface. You won't need to press very hard to get a clean cut anyway. 

4. After your base coat is fully dry, spray the back of your first stencil with a craft spray adhesive. I used 3M General Purpose 45 and let it dry for 60 seconds (I read the directions, yay!) before sticking it to anything so it would be tacky but not super sticky. Tape your first stencil onto the base coat in the position you want and tape a few more sheets of paper around it to make sure you don't over-spray around the stencil border.

5. Paint! I just used your basic RustOleum Protective Enamel Spray in Regal Red Gloss for this step, which is the same as what I used for the base but in spray form, which is much easier for this kind of stenciling. Normally I would go with a flat finish for this project, but I had the glossy version already, so it would have been silly to buy another can just for a different finish. The gloss gives the doubleT more panache anyway. After spraying a few light coats a few minutes apart, carefully remove your stencil while the paint is still wet. You can see in this picture that I didn't tape my borders down sufficiently so I got over-spray. It was easy to fix, but this is why I mentioned it!

6. If you are using a different color for another part of the number, like I did with my Flat White for the numbers,  then repeat steps 4 & 5 for the next stencil color after the first color is dry-ish. About 2 hours was good enough for me.

TA-DA!

I intended to do another double-T on the right side, but I thought it might have been overkill. I still might. We'll see how spirited I'm feeling come football season.