Blinded by the white!

I've been busy getting the garage ready for paint. I needed to do some mud work and get things cleaned up. I quickly remembered why I have always hired my mudding out in the past. I spent 3 days mudding it and Saturday I finally thought I had it ready for paint. I have to say that I'm glad I don't mud for a living and if I did I would surely get fired before long. It's definitely not the best job but it's good enough for my first time trying to mud a whole room and it will work just fine for my garage. I borrowed a texturing spray gun from a buddy at work to do the ceiling with. It turned out so good, I should of textured the walls also. I used the powder mix for the sprayer and it makes a mell of a hess. I wasn't going to cover the walls but after spraying it I am glad I did. I had mud everywhere. Here it is just before I sprayed it.

I used a drill and a mixing paddle to mix up the mud. It has to be about the consistency of a thin milkshake. I didn't get a picture of the sprayer but it has a big hopper on it. Just fill it up, get your air pressure right and spray away.

 It's hard to see here but this is just after I sprayed it. You need a pretty good sized air compressor but I saved a ton of time doing the ceiling this way.

 I then used this scraper to knock down the mud after it dried for about 10 minutes. It really worked awesome. The technique is called a California knock down texture. I think it looks great. I did this on Friday so I would be ready to paint on Saturday.

Saturday I took Steven and Isaac to Home Depot with me at 7 in the morning to buy primer and paint. I estimate that 5 gallons will be enough for the garage. I bought a 5 gallon bucket of Kilz latex primer and primed the walls and ceiling. I think the hardest part of painting was the priming. The ceiling sucked a lot of primer into the mud and the walls looked really horrible after I primed them. I was getting really worried at that point. Luckily after I put on the paint everything looked a lot better. I researched paint pretty extensively before I bought it. My goal in painting the garage is to make it nice and bright for working in. I love working in a bright environment. It makes it really nice to work in rather then a dingy dark garage. That is one reason I really love my job. I have a bright, clean, comfortable shop to work in. In my painting research, I found that flat paint on the ceiling will reflect the light better to the ground so I bought 2 gallons of Behr ceiling paint. For the walls I went with semi gloss so they would be easy to clean. I also read that a bright white with a tiny hint of blue actually reflects the light better then white alone. I chose a Behr paint called frost in semi gloss. It has a tiny hint of blue to it. Here is the shop painted and ready for trim and stuff to go back in.

Here's another view. I like how bright it is. I love Behr paint. It covers awesome. I only used one coat and it looks good. I've used cheap paints in the past and I always have to cover twice and they usually look like crap even after 2 coats.

So, I am 1/2 way done with the garage. Here you can see where I had to stop. I need to move stuff around so I can get to the other half of the garage and I can get to mudding that. More fun to come.

I now have to deal with all this crap and decide what to do with it. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will all be worth it when it's done.

The garage has side tracked me with getting the bug ready for my trip to St. George. Looks like I will be cramming to be ready to leave in the next couple of days. I need to change the oil, adjust the valves and check the points before I go. It's suppose to snow tonight and my bugs outside because the garage is such a mess so that won't help things. Oh well, it will all work out. Party On!