Since early March, we've been tackling everything we initially set out to: studio, jamroom, and positive & productive personal life stuff. Frank and I set out to remodel our jamroom into a personal creative 'heaven', if you will. We've talked about this for months and figured it would be best to do it before the next wave of writing begins - which is any moment... (as soon as recording is completed - 2 or 3 more sessions).
We knew it wouldn't be an easy task, but we weren't expecting it to be this friggin hard!! For those that haven't been here, our practice space is a 2 car garage. We're spoiled and already had it decked out better than most with a drum riser - that I proudly built out of scrap wood!- , our old doormroom fridge and pretty chill seating area (along with lots of tapestries, ambient lighting and Ikea decor). Jason from Flesh Electric had donated a couple of badass fabric flags (Sepultura tribal S and Death "Symbolic"). Gonzo from The Scene donated a King Diamond poster and Lamb of God poster... and Deadpool donated... well.. a picture of themselves. We asked em for posters and got "hell no!!! we're not giving up our Iron Maiden posters!!!" hehe... gotta love the DP - we do.
Anyways, we had every single project spec.ed out to the tee. Frank and I set off to Joann Fabrics & Home Depot on Saturday, 3/31 to buy the materials. Word to the wise... do NOT smoke before you are setting out to be creative and there is money involved. It's a lot like shopping for groceries on an empty stomach. We made some last minute choices at the paint counter that surely cost us some extra bucks! We were at Home Depot FOREVER, walking to and from the paint counter. I DID, however, manage to help stop Frank from purchasing $80 led lights for his riser, instead opting for the $30 'regular' lights (they really do have a warmer feel anyways).
We bought materials to paint the floor and walls black, except one accent wall that is blood red with a mural of a crow (part of an old 6th Street tale from when we played @ the Flamingo on Halloween night 2001) and the band name painted across in a dark metallic left over Ralph Lauren paint I used for our dining chairs. We devised a pretty cool design idea for the floor that prevented us from having to move out the beast of a riser - we begin with the 3/4 of the room in front of the riser and paint it black, sprinkle red and silver glitter on it (red all over, silver in a distinct pattern) then gloss the shit out of it. After the 2 year curing time (actually 72 hours for the paint, 72 for the gloss), we move the shit over and paint out the band gear area floor black, minus the glitter and gloss coats.
It begins flawlessly, but we find out very quickly what a pain in the ass it's going to be. The entire first day was spent degreasing and scrubbing the garage floor to prep. We rinsed for what seems like hours! At least 2... the suds seemed to never cease!!! Frank sent Big Lou to the store to buy a squeegee and it finally did the job. We let the floor dry overnight and laid down a tarp to work on the red wall. Frank and his friend Crystal get to painting the wall and it seems to be taking a million coats! This isn't a huge wall - a little bigger than 1 garage door. It took the entire gallon of red paint, and if you look really closely, there are still patches! While they worked on this, I painted out as much black on the opposite wall that I could without needing the ladder. My dumb ass sets the brand new gallon of black paint down on the tarp behind Frank (you all know where this is going) and he backed up into it and knocks it over on the tarp and freshly prepped floor!!! Resourcefully, we pick up the tarp and let the paint run back into the bucket. We managed to save most of the paint, and learned in the process that you can paint a tarp with latex paint. After all is said and done, we intend to make this black tarp into another painted artpiece - hopefully a collaboration with artistically inclined friends (Mike from Deadpool and Jason from Flesh Electric come to mind because they're always here).
The next day, we painted the floor. It looked BEAUTIFUL - light a clear night sky, but with red stars. While it was curing, Frank painted the fridge, I primed and he painted his monitor stand, and we painted some thrift store sconces and old plastic tiki decor flat black (gotta have the metal gods.. this is another art piece. We're going to poke holes in them and wall mount a light behind it to illuminate through.) I won't go into too much detail on the small projects - instead, we'll just post pictures soon. Anyways, the floor looked amazing.. We were proud. The epoxy floor paint applied easily and flawlessly.
After dry time (I think this is Tuesday now), we proceed to put down the "wet look sealer". It says to apply lightly, by back roll for smooth application. Ha! If only we could rewind to this point. Frank laid it down, paying careful attention to the back roll technique, and it looked pretty thin. On the outside of the roller, there were streaks that went down a little thicker and were a little milkier than the rest of the floor. We finished just as Dave was coming home from work, and he tells us, "that shit's a little thick.. you should smooth it out". Do Frank and Jen listen?! Hell no!!!!!!!!!!! "I'm sure it will dry clear" say Frank & Jen. Our flawless floor is now flawed and the infamous white streaks are born.
Frank and I were soooo bummed. He was beating himself up because he did the painting and I was beating myself up for not urging him to thin it out. We decided to stop for the day and figure out how to save our floor. This was the best decision we made.. so we're not complete morons. I called Behr (the paint manufacturer) and asked them what to do. They said to purchase denatured alcohol and apply it to the streaks. Doing so would break the seal and let the moisture out, turning the streaks clear. We could then proceed and add more coats to thicken the gloss and even out the streaks. Sounds simple in theory, right?!
Frank and I scrounge for change to buy this $7 can of denatured alcohol. He comes back and begins the daunting task of trying to make these streaks go away. I explain the process to him, but our communication skills lack, so he scrubs the shit out of the streaks, removing the varnish AND the black paint underneath in the process. After two small spots of this happening, he comes inside frustrated and says "it's not working, Jen - it's messing up the floor."
"Did you just put it on top or scrub it?!"
"Rubbed it in"
"ahhhh you didn't listen!"
at this point, I get this look of utter frustration, and I read his mind "jen, i want to rip your head off and eat your brain".. so I decide on a new approach. Let's describe in detail what to do.
"just put it on, with a q-tip or some shit - the phone rep said it should break the seal, releasing the moisture, and in theory, they should clear up." He goes outside and keeps working until he finishes the entire floor, then leaves to go pick up his kids. I checked in later, and it seemed to help, but there were still a lot of visible streaks!
My dad lives next door to us, so I went into his garage that night and started snooping around. Ironically, I found a bottle of "OOPS!!". After looking at the bottle, it claimed to work on adhesives and latex paint. hmmm..... I brought this bottle home and got to it - two hours of applying this stuff to each streak with a washcloth. I should have read the bottle more thoroughly and I'm sure that I would have gotten to the part about prolonged exposure to skin. By the end of the floor, I started to feel my right index finger a little tender. I looked down at it and it was red like a mother!! My first three fingers on my right hand were RAW. What a dumb shit. Anyways, the OOPS! worked a million times better than denatured alcohol and I was able to remove about 85% of our fckups. It was well worth the discomfort - good thing I don't have to pick up my bass for a few days.
Fast foward to Saturday. We had planned a BBQ and had hoped for the floor to be done by then. After all, on paper, if we had stayed on schedule, we'd be chillin in our new pimped out creative space Saturday night with all our closest friends, while in fact we were rushing around trying to find enough seating indoors to keep our buddies out of the cold rain . We managed to 'sort of' pull it off by setting up chairs on the drum riser and Frank did a great job of blocking off all traffic on the floor with an old chaise. Fast forward again to last night - Easter evening.
After we put our kids to bed, I went back outside and briefly swept up & touched up the black that had been scrubbed off. The floor looked clean, yet I had another pleasant surprise to be found later. Naive to my plight, I proceeded to put on the first coat of sealer since our initial mishap. We've been doing all this work in socks so we don't dirty the floor. I felt something sharp.
It seems that someone broke a beer bottle Saturday and failed to clean it all up. I moved the chaise and found some big chunks of amber bottle.. undoubtedly Bud Light. FCK! Don't care that someone broke a bottle, kind of care that they cleaned it halfass (because of the kids), really upset that I laid down varnish on 1/3 the floor riddled with shards of glass. It's not like I could sweep it up because I had laid down the gloss so there I go.. on my hands and knees trying to pick out dark glass slivers on a black gloss floor. I picked up what I could.. I have to wait until the shit dries and then go back and dig out this glass. Leaving them there is not an option for obvious safety reasons. That's our story... I have one more coat of gloss to put down before the 72 hour curing period, but now I have to wait until I can walk on it (tonight) and comb through this shit for glass.
Crap! I've done enough home improvement projects to know that nothing is ever as easy as it seems and that shit happens, but I've never run into obstacles like this. I know in the end, it'll be worth all the work and we'll have a badass place to create our music. We're nowhere near ready to give up.. I just wanted to share our story thus far! I'm sure I'll have a bunch more by the time our renovation is complete.
