Thursday, July 26, 2012

Painting the Stairs Part 4

Where were we?
Yes, back to painting the stairs.

One coat of primer, two coats of porch paint.  
Painted all the trim before the second coat.
Then corner molding for each step. 


Going down the stairs, they all seems to blend together.  So for safety, I decided to add some strips.
I used a Martha Stewart specialty paint called Terra Cotta.  It has sand mixed in it so it gives a little added traction.



It was a pain to measure and tape those stripes!  I used a sponge to apply the paint for the strips.



After I used the terra cotta paint, I then added a thin layer of glow in the dark paint. 
It gave an unintentional marbled effect that I really like AND it GLOWS IN THE DARK.  Way cool!
I tried to get a photo of the glowing stairs, but my camera phone isn't up to that.



 This is pulling the tape off.  I let it dry a few hours, but no completely.  Then, I used a hair dryer to soften the paint a bit before pulling up the tape.  I used a low tack tape on the outer edge and it did great!  The center tape is just plain old painters tape and it did pull up the paint in a few spots.

  Yes, it is a necessary part of the process to step on the giant ball of painted tape at the bottom of the stairs.  It won't turn out right if you skip this step.

AND all done!
Okay, all done except the quarter molding...need to practice on the 
miter saw before I attempt those little corners.