Saturday, October 12, 2013

Painting

As far as painting experience, I’d say mine is minimal. Basically I’ve done four projects to date.

A few years back I painted a furniture piece. I’m sure it was nothing elaborate for most people, but at the time it seemed like a major project as far as I was concerned. It was a storage unit of sorts with a couple long drawers and some cubby holes that was originally under a bed. The unit was mostly an open frame. I had taken some old paneling and covered the gaps to make it easier on the eyes and more practical. The paneling was cheap and aged, so I had decided to paint it and give it a facelift.

The second project was painting all the exposed masonry at the exterior of the house. It’s a small house, but the amount of painting that needed to be done might surprise you. My sister has a good amount of experience painting. She came over, gave me direction, and pitched in doing a good share of the work.

Number three is updating a room in the house. Took out the wallpaper and rug that had both seen better days and have repainted the ceiling and walls. My sister came and assisted again, and quite frankly, I would not have even attempted the project without her support. My second and third project have at least produced for me a crash instructional course on how to paint.

The overall work in the room is still not completed. Seasonal changes in temperature caused me to shift my attention over to the outside of the house.

Project four involved exterior painting. It may be true that I still had plenty of time to complete it at leisure, but was concerned that my schedule or the weather might hinder me until spring unless I did it now. Two items were tackled here, the first a window that that was missing much of its paint showing mostly just the bare wood. Secondly, a door. The door was far from pristine to begin with.

The work done with project four vastly improved the window and door, It also made two things happen: It got me more comfortable with painting. It also got me to see a myriad of mistakes made along the way. They are all minor and well over shadowed by the overall improvement. The only issue created is that I find fault with more things and want them changed. The window in the door had a plastic covering that was downright gruesome looking as it had not aged well and was deteriorating. I’ve since replaced it with a simple curtain.

There just so much to do and it all takes time. We’ll see where all goes.