Cabin - the paint

The electrician popped in to put in power points and connect the LED lights that we installed during the cabin build. I went off to Bunnings to buy paint, and the guy asked, "well how new is the wood? It might have a silicon coating that needs to wear off in the sun." I had no idea. He said to spray the wood with water and if it beaded, then it was still too new and needed to settle in for 4-6 weeks. If the water absorbed, then it was okay to paint. It...seemed to absorb? Well it partly absorbed and partly ran off. I decided water, schmorta, I'd paint the inside now and do the outside in a few weeks. After all, I want to get my stuff in there!

I really wanted to use Porter's Paints because I love their colours, quality and style, but when I worked it out, the cost was far more than Dulux from Bunnings. Sadly the budget was the deciding factor, and also as I was only painting in white it didn't seem worth the extra cost. Maybe if I repaint one day in fancy colours I'll use them. The colour of the walls is 'Lexicon', which is basically white with the slightest touch of blue grey in it. Seriously, you can go insane comparing paint chips but you do start to see the tiniest differences between shades of white.

I finally got new workboots too. They don't look that shiny anymore.

Gin was on school holidays so came over with all her painting gear to help. We spent a long day putting on the primer; because the walls are tongue and groove construction, it took ages to get the paint in between all the gaps. A quick roll over wouldn't do. But that was okay, we chatted and listened to music and got the whole primer coat done. It took us longer to do the primer coat than it took the guys to put the whole thing up!

I snatched time here and there over the last week to do more painting. With my awfully sore hand and aching shoulders from the first coat, I bought a cheap paint spray gun and tried that; it worked really well except for the fact that my overlapping lines weren't so great. It would have been better if I'd been using a colour over the primer rather than white because then I'd be able to see where I'd not quite covered the wall. Anyway, for the second coat I rolled, but because all the gaps were filled in it was much easier and gave a good smooth finish.

Of course, left to my own devices I managed to knock the paint can over when it was half full. After scraping up the excess, I drew a peacock and called it art.

I stained the door frame and window frames with Cabot's stain in coco black. I did the surrounds in a Taubman's purplish gloss called rooti tooti (who comes up with these names?!). The taping I did around the windows wasn't so successful; the paint bled a bit so the edge isn't crisp and neat. I went around with a small brush trying to touch it up but in some places I think I made it worse. Still, not too fussed. And if I do it again, I now know the tips on how to get a crisp edge. I may repaint the part I left white in a peacock blue colour. I'll wait til I put my stuff in the room to see how it looks.