Spray paint is easy and relatively inexpensive, but if you don’t have the space to lay out tarp or paper to spray paint small items like drawer pulls, picture frames and door handles, use a cardboard box to keep the mess in check.
The box will contain the paint as you spray, resulting in more paint on your project and less on your walls, floor or any other surface nearby. Plus, the box is recyclable when you’re finished with it, so cleanup is easy. If you’re painting outdoors, it will also keep bugs and debris from blowing into the wet paint and ruining your finish. Wearing a paint mask will help keep you safe if you’re painting in an enclosed space, but make sure to do it in a ventilated area.
If you want to elevate your item, a piece of foam with popsicle sticks (you could even use a couple of pencils) keeps your item off the bottom of the box and makes it easy to rotate as you paint each side. Once the paint has dried on the inside of the box, you can collapse it for easy storage to use again later.
How to Update a Brass Lighting Fixture and Spray Painting Trick [In My Own Style]
Lifehacker’s Workshop column covers DIY tips, techniques and projects.
Comments
2 responses to “Use A Box To Spray Paint Small Items With No Mess”
Except this is a bad idea… The overspray blows back and gets all over your hands. Also the can says in large friendly letters “USE IN A WELL VENTILATED AREA” sticking your face in a box full of paint fumes is really bad for you. A paint mask as you suggest does not remove solvent fumes which you’ll be huffing like a homeless junkie. Use an old wire clothes hanger or two bent into shape and hang it off your clothes line so it’s at eye level outdoors with good light and you can get a clear spray at all sides of it. It also means the overspray has a long way to go before it lands so the droplets will be dry.
DONT USE A BOX. And you damn well better be outdoors with spray paint, that overspray is gonna get in all of your shit. Seriously you guys may as well say to put it in a plastic bag and suck down lungfuls out of the bag… A “hack” is pointless if it’s worse than standard practice.
Everything he said +1. Unless you rig a decent exhaust out of the box, it doesn’t work.