Refinishing a Paper Towel Holder

Yesterday I took the vintage metal paper towel holder off the kitchen wall and took a heat gun to it. Blogger is not letting me upload pictures right now, so the only picture I have of it right now is this one you have to scroll down a little to see it. And look close, it blends in with the wall because it's covered in the same wallpaper. All I know about this towel holder is that it came with the house, is metal, and appears to be from the 50's. We don't use it right now because the few times we have we usually forget that it's there because it blends right in and then we end up with two rolls of paper towels in use. And then we end up taking the roll back out so we don't forget that it's there again.

So back to the refinishing. I took it off the wall, which was a pain since it was screwed through the plexiglass backsplash and took it out to the garage. I then grabbed the heat gun and got to work. This was the first time I have ever used a heat gun, so it was an interesting experience. I only had one small fire before I realized the heat was up way too high. It was rough at first because, well, I had the heat too high so all I has doing was melting and smearing the paint underneath. After I got that figured out it went nice and easy. Peeled all the layers right off with no smearing. I have to go back over where I started though because its rough and bumpy. I'm going to try using a scotch pad to get that straightened out. When I get off work this evening I'm going to paint it bright red. And hopefully blogger will be working right again so I can post pictures of it. There ended up being a layer of wallpaper, a layer of paint, some kind of fruit decal, and the original finish which has some kind of writing on one side and a design in the middle.

I'm painting it bright red because I want a red kitchen. Since hubby said no to red walls (actually it was something like if you paint the walls red they'll be white again before you get home from work) I'm using red accents everywhere I can. Like storage containers have red lids, red Kitchen Aid cooking utensils, red towels, red corners on the cutting board...you get the point.