The Dungeon: Day 2,3, & 4

With the extra time from this past weekend, I made a lot of progress on my little project. It also helped that I got a really early start on Friday morning because I took Jason to the airport at 4:00 AM! Here is the breakdown of my weekend and the progress I have made:

After I got home from the airport (thankfully it’s only a 1/2 hour drive) I started working on his desk. As I mentioned, I wanted to paint it and I knew I wanted to use spray paint to make it an even finish. First, I emptied it out and then taped off the top and the handles:

Next I started sprainting. After much deliberation, I chose matte black for the color. I wanted to get this project out of the way first because spray paint makes a huge mess. If any happened to get on the walls, it wouldn’t ruin my fresh paint job if I got this out of the way before I started painting the room. I laid plastic on the floor and the paint seemed to stay contained in the room and didn’t get on anything I didn’t want it to. It smelled terrible in there though so I opened a window :) It was dark when I took this picture but hopefully you get the idea. Here is the finished desk.

I’m really in love with the new color! In between coats on the desk, I was working on painting the shelves outside. I ended up getting two coats done on one side. This was the first time I got to see how the color would look. You see, I mixed several paints together again. This is quickly becoming my new favorite thing to do. Since I am usually working with a small budget (in this case, my budget is nil) I can still paint something and I get to use some of the paint just sitting unused in my basement. Once again, the color turned out great and I love it! I will show you later on what it looks like.

The only other thing I did on Friday besides running some random errands (more on that later), is I primed the exposed brick. I wanted to prime the rest of the room but didn’t have enough primer so I settled for priming the brick. I knew it would soak up a lot of paint and so I decided it should be done. After doing it, I remembered why I hate painting brick. At least there wasn’t very much space to cover!!

When Saturday rolled around I was ready to get to painting! I had a prior commitment in the morning so I didn’t get started until after lunch. With that late start in there, I still feel like I got a lot accomplished.

Remember how I said my budget for this room was basically $0? Well, I got to thinking that we have a coin jar that I could turn in and get some cash for a few extra things. So one of my errands on Friday was to turn in said coin jar. I ended up with about $41, yay for me!! Much more than I thought was in there since it was mostly pennies. So I stopped by the thrift store on my way home and I found a treasure.

Remember how I said I really wanted a rug for this room but I would have to wait based on my budget? Well, I found a wonderful rug at the thrift store for $20! Score!! The colors were perfect and so was the size at 60” x 90”. Before I brought it home I checked for stains and smells and all seemed in order. It’s actually in really great shape. Since it came from the thrift store, I really wanted to clean it good before I put it in the room. It’s acrylic so I didn’t think it would be a problem. Just a quick Google search told me what to do.

First, I rigged up a way to hang it up in the backyard. Just a couple of ladders and a board to hang it on.

There is my rug, isn’t it awesome?! I think it’s going to look fabulous in the room!! Anyway, next I sprayed it down with the garden hose.

(Don’t you just love my outfit?!) Next I used a bucket of soapy water (using dishsoap) and washed it down. Then I used the hose again to rinse it. Then I used another bucket of soapy water, this time using carpet cleaner and washed it again. One more time with the hose to rinse it really well and then I just left it there to dry. Thankfully, it was another really nice day with a slight breeze and it was dry by the next day. It ended up working really well and now I have a nice clean rug! I’m really pleased with it.

While my rug was drying, I gave my shelves 2 coats of paint on the reverse side. And just like that, the shelves were all done. I wanted to get these done quickly so they would have time to cure before I started loading them up with stuff. Here is a picture of them drying in the sun:

After that project was completed, I headed inside and got my paint on. I started with cutting in from the doorway and went around the room until I got to the window on the opposite side. Then I started rolling the paint on. I wanted to see how the cinder blocks took the paint before I cut in too far because I figured I would have some spots to touch up that the roller wouldn’t reach. And that is exactly what happened. It took me a long time to get that far but I expected it since there are so many different kinds of surfaces and grooves. All in all, I got the first coat done on half of the room. And that finished my Saturday. Here are some pictures of the first coat:

Again, I started by the door…

Moved around the room and did the bookshelves…

And ended up by the window. I really like the color. It’s really dark but I love how everything including the trim and doors is the same color. I have been wanting to do that for a while now and this was the perfect opportunity since the trim and doors weren’t previously painted. The room feels masculine to me which is exactly what I wanted.

On Sunday it was just more painting. I didn’t get started until after church so I had another late start but I got all of the first coat done on the rest of the room. The first coat always takes the longest so I’m looking forward to hopefully finishing up the painting today. We will see how that goes! I will leave you with a picture of me painting from yesterday:

I picked up where I left from the previous day and went around.

What do you do while you paint? I like to listen to a movies. It has to be a movie I have already seen so that I won’t be distracted but that is what I always do. I will see if I can get through my whole movie collection. Ha ha, not really, but I have made a good dent!

So that brings you up to speed. I will be back tomorrow with another update!!