Painting the Basement, Part 1

I can tell I am an amateur blogger because whenever I have the biggest projects going on in my home I have nothing going on in blog land.  Also, the busier I am the less pictures I take.  I'll have to work on that.

This is how my basement looks today.  Thanks to our friend (Mr. K.) who knows a lot about paint.  I'll walk you through the steps so far.

First, we taped off everything we didn't want paint on like tile, windows etc.
Mr. K has two sprayers that look like this.

One is for oil based products and the other is for water based products.  He first sprayed all the wood work with a lacquer under coater.  This stuff in pricey, like $45 a gallon, his price, but it is a really awesome sealer.  As soon as he finished with the under coater he primed everything.  He used tinted primer where we were applying color.

We waited for this to dry overnight.  Then we lightly sanded everything.  We used a pole sander for the walls and a sanding pad for the wood work and doors.

Then we spackled and caulked all the dings and mistakes. and gave everything a good vacuum

Then Mr. K. came back he brushed a little primer over all of our spackle patches and sprayed a final coat in all the woodwork.

We are letting this cure for 48 hours before we begin taping it all off.  He will paint the ceiling next.

A GOOD TURN DAILY

I have to share this story because I can't quit laughing about it.  My cute son and his scout troop went to sing patriotic songs at an assisted living center. 

This cute little elderly lady was sitting in front of us.  She was sporting some very beautiful butterfly barrettes.  I am sure they are all the rage with the elderly women.  The butterfly attached to the barrette with a coil so when she moved her head the butterfly moved kind of like a bobble head.  The butterflies were about the same size as a moth.

Well, my very helpful husband saw this insect hovering just above her head and thought it was real.  So in the spirit of scouting and doing a good turn daily he decided to rescue this poor women and swat the moth away.  Everyone around was watching as he realized it was attached and intentional.  The surprised look on his face was priceless as he apologetically slumped back into his seat. I did the hunched over, trying to be quiet, while tears are running down your face laugh, all the way through God Bless America, and Yankee Doodle Dandy. 

The cute little lady didn't even flinch

Dollar spray paint dilema

Many of my blog friends are not a fan of the dollar spray paint and I understand why.  But I must say for certain items I love the dollar spray paint.  This is why, it is cheap enough you can keep several colors on hand, I am so impatient when I get the itch to paint something I hate having to shower, change out of my paint clothes and go to the store.  I just want to get my milk create out of the garage head to the lawn and spray away.

Here is a lamp from the DI

Here it is with a red oxide primer. Yes, dollar primer.

Here it is with a couple coats of dollar black spray paint.  I think it looks great! Or it would with a cute lamp shade.

I also use dollar spray paint on items I am going to sand through a lot of the paint anyway.  Like this table I got from the DI for $10.00

If I use higher quality paint I just have to do more sanding, and no one likes sanding.

I do splurge for the pricier paint if it is a nice piece of furniture or if the item really has to hold up to some wear and tear.

Happy Painting!!!