Sunday, April 26, 2015

Lipstick on a Sow - What a bit of paint can do.


 I made the stack and bundle box from left over plywood, some of the plywood was construction grade and some had been wet. Since I am cheap and never know when  I will have use for a bit of wood I kept some of the plywood piled in my basement for 5 or so years. Keeping materials around can take up space but it can also save money.  The only thing to remember that it is tough to make a pretty project with mismatched and left over materials. My results are usually practical but not very pretty.
   
 The box is a perfect example of this situation, unfinished the box was rough and fairly ugly.  Clearly it was not going to look good stained either so I painted the stack and bundle box solid grey.  The paint was decent quality but a bit dull, I  decided to add red stripes, a little flair and style just for fun. The reason for the colour scheme?  I had a quart of red and of grey paint on my shelf.



  I put down a couple of coats of grey and then masked off the stripes with painter's tape.


 

  Usually when I use paint aesthetics have less to do with my decision than practically or weather proofing. So I don't really care what colour the paint is as much as whether is good quality.

  A long time ago I started checking out the Opps paints at big box stores.There are often things that got tinted wrong, or that someone didn't like and returned, but as you can see I got perfectly usable grey paint for $3.00/litre, the red was about the same price. For this type of job the paint is the 'lipstick on the sow'. The bundle box is still a sow made from mixed left over wood, but with a good paint job it is a prettier sow.

  If you collect newspaper for recycling or composting or what ever I recommend this project as a space and time saver.

cheers, ianw

 

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