Thursday, March 24, 2011

Three Little Sprouts

I got home in time to do another round of sanding on the platforms today.   When I was done I wiped them down with a damp rag to get rid of the sawdust...  and then...

Wa-lah!!


Do you love it??  I do... 

I was sort of nervous to start rolling the paint on.  I had made a huge 5 foot by 6 foot stencil out of heavy brown construction paper using an image on my laptop and a projector.  I traced the image, (insert thanks here for not torturing you with all the details) cut it out, and then put clear mailing tape on both sides of the paper around the cut out and cut it out again to give it clean, tape-bound edges.  I was worried that the edges of the stencil would get soggy after one or two sprouts and that it would disintegrate before I could do the third.  And as long as it took me to make the stencil, I knew for sure that I didn't want to have to make a second one...

Anyway, I weighted the edges of the paper down with pieces of wood, and used a small foam roller.  It went very fast.  It was a tiny bit tricky to move the stencil to the next platform without screwing up the wet paint, but I made it.  Here's a close up of one:



My original plan was to sand the paint off a little in places to make it look old and weathered.  I am not postive I am going to do that... regardless of that decision, I am going to seal the whole thing with Thompson's Clear Water Seal.  It won't substantially change the wood color, and it has some UV protection in it.  I'll put a coat on my cedar fence while I have it out...

I plan to go to a sand and gravel place tomorrow to see about having a load of river stone delivered on Saturday for the border around each platform. 

YAY!!!

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