Small Home Big Start: How to Paint a Horseshoe

Last week, I shared how I cleaned up an old horseshoe given to us by my Nana, and I'm happy to say that it is now hanging up in our front hall.

This is what it looked like when we first got it from my Nana...

...and here is what it looked like after cleaning it up. It was already looking better, but we knew that we wanted to add come kind of a finish to not only clean it up, but to also protect it against more rust.

After much debate about what type of finish it should be, we finally agreed on Rustoleum's Hammered Black Spray Paint. I liked that it is paint and primer all in one and we thought that the finish would help highlight some of the main details on the horseshoe.

I ended up painting three thin coats on both sides, about an hour apart, and then let it dry completely overnight.

The next day it looked like this - black undertone, but with silver blue highlights.

I'm so happy with how the finish turned out. Such an improvement from the original rusty version, but with all the character. The nails turned out great and I'm glad that we didn't cut them off in the end.

To prevent any scratches on the wall when it is hung up, I decided to put matching felt on the back to protect it.

Traced the horseshoe shape, cutting about 1/4" in from the sides so that the felt isn't visible when it is glued on.

I cut the felt horseshoe shape into sections that fit in between the bent nails on the back. A little hot glue kept them in place.

I made sure to poke the holes through the felt as well, and to add some extra felt batting on any of the bent nails.

You can see a tiny strip of felt that I put on the back of this nail to protect the wall.

Then it was just a matter of hanging it up in our front hall for some good luck!

To put it up, I held it up to the wall and poked a pencil through the holes that I wanted to hang it from. I hammered in two similar coloured nails into the marked holes on the wall and then hung it up.

I found the perfect spot for it above some little touches I made last spring to our tiny front hall area - a photo from my trip to Greece in 2009 and a cute little bird hook that we use to hang Whiskey's leashes and sweaters.

Just because you don't have much of a front hall, doesn't mean you can add some little touches to make it look nice and welcoming!