Project Balcony: Step 3

Aaron got the final coat of the marine sealant on the boards last Thursday (Nov. 15th) which meant it was time to Step 3.  Step 3 is two coats of oil-based paint on the underside of the boards. 

Aaron decided to stop for the paint on Friday after work...  He had a bit of trouble getting the paint because it needed to be oil-based and apparently Lowe's doesn't have oil-based paint...  He went to Sherwin Williams and, after a discussion with an employee who didn't appear to know what he was talking about, he found some oil-based paint and got two quarts.  They had white and black; Aaron chose black...

On Saturday morning, Aaron put the first coat of the paint on (a little more than) half of the boards.  (The picture on the left shows his painting skills.)  He tried to get as many boards done as possible so he was painting a few, then moving a few more boards up next to the newly painted ones, and so on.  (The picture on the right shows the board-moving process.)  He managed to do 21 of the 37 boards.  It took him a little more than 2 hours to get done.  Aaron said the paint is a bit "tar-like" and doesn't spread very easily.  Additionally, because it's an oil-based paint it's highly flammable so extra precautions must be taken in terms of cleaning up. 

We went to my parents' house for family dinner on Saturday; when we got home around 6pm, Aaron went to work on the second coat on paint on those boards.  It took him another two hours or so which meant he finished up well into the evening.  I felt bad that he was working on the boards so late...  I also hated that it meant there wasn't much time for the fumes to dissipate.  But, hey, what can you do?!

Let me take a second to show you some "before" and "after" shots....  Obviously, the photo on the left is the unpainted boards and the photo on the right is the painted boards.  You can also see a bit of the tongue-and-groove cuts on the boards.

On Sunday night, Aaron and I moved the first half of the boards outside.  This was another fun process...  I couldn't take pictures this time because I was a little busy actually moving the boards.  Let's just say that I had to lift the boards, carefully turn them in the "office", then get them into the bedroom, turn them again (carefully), and get them out onto the balcony and down to Aaron who was waiting on the ground.  It took a little while, but we got the boards down onto the sideo patio; Aaron stacked them up and covered them to keep them dry and clean.

After those boards were out of the way, Aaron got to work putting the first coat of paint on the second half of the boards.  I will be doing the final coat on the second half of the boards as soon as I get home today...  Aaron gave me some basic instructions and I am going to try to get them done by the time he gets home at 5:30pm so he can tell me how to clean up.  I would have let him finish the painting job so I can work on school stuff but I really want to go to pub trivia tonight, so I'll take one for the team here...