ceilings & floors
JULY 16, 2016
My order for the day was to paint the floor, but, as you might have guessed, I got distracted. The shop was delivered with studs in the interior, minus the plywood floor. I, being a person who watches too much HGTV, decided to stain the studs on the ceiling. This seemed like a perfect plan– I would stain the beams and then paint the floor, so if a couple of drops of stain made their way down it wouldn't matter.
As I started to stain the first beam, I realized that this might have been a mistake. Here's a list of things to keep in mind:
- If you've insulated your darkroom, it will be warm, especially during the heat of the day
- A 4' ladder might not be tall enough to reach the peak of the ceiling, especially if you're 5'4"
- Beams have three sides
I stained as many of the beams as space would allow (about 5), which took roughly 4-5 hours. This would have been much faster if I was A) taller, or B) able to think of walking back to the garage to get a 6' ladder.
On the bright side, painting about 96 square feet of flooring seemed like nothing after standing on tiptoes on a ladder. For the floors I used an oil-based porch paint by Valspar. Try as I might, I am not always a tidy person, therefore the floors could not stay bare. The best and cheapest tool I've found for painting a floor is a Handi Painter. At less than $2, this is probably the cheapest part of the whole process.
Pre paint and stain
Half a beam in. I originally thought I could get away with not staining those triangular plywood pieces, but (surprise) I was wrong.
Mostly done
