Thursday, September 13, 2018

Digging Out the Studio Week 7: The Garage Spray Booth

I love looking at the folders of pictures as I start writing these posts. It's been long enough now that I forgot what was going on in my life, and it's amusing to remember all the billions of variables playing out and swirling around the studio clean up. Some weeks it actually makes me feel kind of incredible that I was able to keep moving this project forward, with all the other things happening. 

And during week 7, I wasn't able to keep it moving. We didn't even go into the studio actually, due to an even bigger project that fell into my lap. Well two projects, really. 

So you all remember the story I was telling you about the Mid Century Sideboard I had started cleaning up? If not, check it out here. It's about the top middle of the post. Go on. We'll wait...



Well, I kept working on the sideboard for the next couple of days after the Sisters left. (They come over every Wednesday afternoon) Sometime that same weekend I finally finished all the prep work and decided to start painting it. This was a much more monumental decision than you would think, because I had decided to use a sprayer. 

My sister gave me one when I flew out to Oregon to design her house about 2 years ago and I had never used it. It was still new in the box. I had been waiting for another, less favorite and irreplaceable piece of furniture to present itself as my "practice" piece. Alas, non had materialized. And the sideboard was ready and waiting. So I busted out my huge plastic drop cloth, stapled it to my deck and draped it across the lawn, read the directions on the sprayer box, moved the sideboard back outside, and got my spray on. 

It was glorious! Such smooth, brush-less layers! And the sprayer was so easy to use. (I have this one, but I think my sister got it on Amazon.com). I spritzed and sprayed, being sure to keep the paint even and catch all the nooks and crannies. After a few passes, I realized that I could use this little machine competently. Which left just one thing to worry about. 

The weather.

The paint I used, Benjamin Moore Advance, is oil based and therefore requires almost twice the drying time of latex or other, water-based paints. The one thing that could undo all my careful prep work, would be rain. And if you have ever lived in the Mid Atlantic in the summer, you know the only constant about the weather is that it can always rain. 

So I checked the Doppler and checked the hourly forecast repeatedly. 

I was good to go. 

Or so I thought.

I had planned on bringing the sideboard back inside at the 4 hr mark, when the directions said it would be "dry to the touch." I had cleaned up the sprayer and settled in with my kids for a bit of binging on a few episodes of  The Great British Baking Show, when I heard the rain. And it wasn't raining. It was pouring. Stupid Doppler.

My oldest and I bolted outside and had that thing in the house in about 4 minutes flat. But by that time, the damage was done. My beautiful, smooth, perfect finish was starting to run in rivers of white. The top had to be blotted dry, each touch of the towel taking paint and leaving blotches. 


I dried it off, turned out the lights in the basement, and just walked back upstairs, because I  was in shock that all my careful work had been so quickly and easily ruined. No Words.

And FYI, I totally recommend the Great British Baking Show, if you need to be distracted from having a project you've waited years to do get completely undone by rain that shouldn't have been there. I seriously forgot all about it, until I woke up the next morning. 

When I woke up, two things occurred to me. First, I had used an oil based primer known for being tough as nails for the the base coat, so there should be no water damage to the wood since I dried the water off. And second, this was the only first of three coats of paint. I could sand it and smooth everything out, and due to the succeeding layers, no one would ever know what a disaster the first coat had been. Whew! What a difference a little sleep and watching a lot of baking shows can make.

Needless to say, I moved my spray booth out of the yard and into my garage. I hadn't done this initially, because it requires a ton of masking. And it takes over your entire garage until you are completely finished. And with the drying time of this particular paint being so long, I wanted to try everything else first. But there I was. So the plastic tarps went up everywhere and my car was banished to the driveway until further notice.


At this same time, a good friend of mine was moving. She had just bought a house she loved after living in a rental that she did not love for a way too long, and was keen to make the place "hers." After popping over there during the inspection, because why would I wait until she actually owned the house like a normal person? Do you know how long escrow can take?, I realized that she had ugly wood cabinets that she hated in her new kitchen and that I had a spray gun in my basement. It was the perfect combination for a really fun service project. Initially, I was hoping to paint the kitchen cabinet doors at her place, but when I had to move the spray booth to my garage anyway, it just became apparent that doing the spraying at my place made way more sense. 

Enter the sister missionaries. (Oh come on. You knew I would get there eventually.) By the time they showed up Wednesday of Week 7, I had finished the sideboard. 


It turned out really well. And weeks and months later I am still geeking out about how great it looks. 

With the sideboard out of the way, that left a stack of nasty brown cabinet doors taking up my garage space. I gave each of the girls a pair of rubber gloves, some scrubby sponges, and some cleaner. We put up a few funky folding tables and started degreasing and deep cleaning cabinet doors from the 1970's. Such fun! 




The tool they are using is called a "5 in 1". It's a painter's tool used to get crud out of creases and tight corners, super useful for removing caulk from the tub or windows, and perfect for getting off nasty chunks of who knows what from old cabinet doors. 

Ironically, the previous Monday was the one day every six weeks, when the church office changes where the missionaries live and who they work with. This day is called "transfers". We all had a feeling that one of the three sisters was going to another area, so I gave them all a present at church the Sunday before transfers. And what did that present happen to be? Each girl got her own "5 in 1" of course! (well, theirs were "6 in 1's", if we're being technical. Their version had a brass plate on the handle base you can use like a hammer. So awesome!) I thought it was super appropriate to give a tool as a "thank you" to my handy little helpers. And this IS my favorite tool. 

It was a good thing I did too, because just as predicted, Sister Merritt got transferred. So sad, but totally how things work. Well, unless you are Sister Kleven. I think she was assigned to the "Burke, Virginia" Mission, while all the other missionaries here here were assigned to the "Washington DC South" mission. That girl has been here forever, with no sign of leaving. It's September. She got here in April, and she's still here. 

Anyway, cleaning. Then the sanding, because I couldn't use these girls as slave labor unless there were power tools involved, right? So we busted out the palm sander.



This is Sister Anderson checking for perfection. I am not even joking. I am super anal about smoothness, and even my standard wasn't high enough for her. We ended up giving her the two biggest, nastiest doors to work on, because she is totally OCD very focused and was taking forever with the cleaning and sanding.


See what I mean? The girl is meticulous. 


So we've moved on to the palm sander, but look. It's still the same door! 
Sister Kleven had done 3 or 4 small ones by this point. And in Sister Anderson's defense, those two doors were smooth as a baby's butt when she was finally done.


Since she was so good with the details, I let Sister Anderson figure out how much water we need to mix into the primer, so it would work in the sprayer. And yes, I tried to send the girl's home once the cabinets were all clean and sanded, because I felt bad about making them work so hard, but they looked at me with sad eyes and said, "You mean we don't get to use the paint sprayer?" True story.


I am telling you, this girl can rock any weird piece of safety equipment you make her wear.


We had a little tutorial against the plastic, where they both had to practice, until it looked like they had the necessary spraying distance and layering patterns down, and then I let them at it for real.

Here is Sister Kleven, showing us how it's done:


She really liked the paint sprayer. We may or may not have had to take it away from her, because she got the "Crazy Eyes."

  

Since it was the primer coat, I wasn't too worried about things being perfect. But of course Sister Anderson was. And they both did such a nice job. Great work any day, but even better considering they were a pair of newbies.

And here's how the cabinet doors turned out:



They sprayed until all the cabinet doors we had were primed, even the big, perfectly smooth ones. At this point I kicked them out, in spite of protests that they wanted to help clean out the paint sprayer. In all, I think they saved me about 5-6 hrs in cleaning and sanding, just by being two extra pairs of hands. Service hours anyone?

Great job girls! And thanks so much.

Any of you all have an adventure with a paint sprayer this week? 
Or have rain that shouldn't have been there ruin your plans? 
I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

Talk to you soon,

CM Shaw

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