I managed to get the shed door painted last weekend, to match our scheme for our house.
Then it rained all week, starting Monday.
The steps I took to do it were largely based off having a look around at what others have done to do it. Admittedly, a powder coating finish would be far better than the acrylic paint, brushed on.
First, I used a wire brush to scrub the surface of the door clean, and create a suitable surface for coating.
Second, I washed it down, Sugar Soap is good.
I waited til the door was dry, which took about 30 minutes in the sun of that day, and then applied the first coat. The paint we used was Nippon Solareflect, in the Colorbond Deep Ocean colour, Gloss finish.
So, I painted the door using a brush, starting at the bottom, working my way across in even strokes, through to the top, and then doing what I could to get to the back roll as well (to avoid seeing white when ‘looking up’).
I waited 2 hours, and then began a second coat, and also made sure that the coat was complete – making sure we had full coverage involved covering anything that looked lighter.
My thinking during the first coat was to get it on as much as possible, it need not be complete, so long as it wasn’t a thick coat. The second coat would ensure complete coverage.
I let it dry after 4pm, but began looking outside to the grey, rain look that was in the sky – thankfully, it didn’t rain til overnight / the next morning.
After seeing it now, I think it’d still be better if it was powder coated to the right color, and also, it has many dints in it (but otherwise in good condition) – the dints make themselves pretty visible.
It’s like many things of beauty, it looks good – from a distance. Since the shed isn’t at the front, it matters little, it can be seen from the front, which is why I did paint it, because the dilapidated timber fence is going, and we’ll put up a new fence on the council boundary in the future.
This week, we had the Invisigard mesh and Invisiscape screens go in. The reason why we chose to have the fixed screens on the fixed windows in simple – there’s no point protecting the opening, if you can just smash the glass next to it.
The screen doors are still to come, problems with a guillotine have meant the company can’t cut the mesh.
The fixing of the screens to the windows is done by screwing them down – in order to remove them, you would need a specialty drill bit, which the installers tell me you must be registered for.
But, considering the screen would also protect the glass from breakage, it’s unlikely you’d need to ever remove them, and the added benefit – no costs in monitoring, like you would with an alarm system.
There now is an issue with the front steps again, my besser block fix proved poor, rain has caused the ground below it to soften I think, and so the blocks have sunk into the dirt. We’ll have to figure out what the long term goal is for that, and plan.
Then again, that door could be removed, and we could turn the bathroom into our entry, off the side. It’d make a very different (but workable) floor plan