Over the weekend I got started the big vaulted ceiling.   Its 25 feet from the floor to the peak of the ceiling.  I am painting it like wood grain but in designer colors.  I was able to get it primed and basecoated over the weekend.  There are 4 big trusses that will get painted also. They are going to be painted like a dark walnut.
 

No pictures this week.  I have been working on sample boards for a new construction home creating the texture on the walls.  Its a good challenge to be the one who applies the texture.  I am using a series of photographs the client has provided.  I will post some pictures when I work it out.

The big trusses for the great room came yesterday and were set. These big fir beams will be painted to match the other beams I have done for the home.
I spent the day painting the tongue part of the tongue and grove 2 by 6 ceiling planks for this room, approximately 220 sixteen footers. A little forward thinking here is that if the ceiling planks shrink any you might be able to see the raw wood if a seam opens up. So painting that area eliminates that from happening.

I have just completed reconditioning two front doors.   First day I stripped down the doors by sanding.  In the first picture you can see where the upper part of the doors are sanded down to the wood.  These doors face east and get the morning sun.  The old finish was totally cracked and coming off.   Luckily the wood itself was still ok.
 

Completed doors then a detail shot.
 

I finished up with the ceiling planks today.  Or I should say this first phase of them.   More are coming later this week so I will be back at it then.  All in all they came out great.  I will try to get a couple of pictures in a day or so of then installed.

I should have no problem finishing up on the 2 by 6 planking I am painting this week.  Its suppose to rain tomorrow morning so that may slow me down some but probably not too much.

I have been working a new construction home this month.   I am painting a lot of the big wood beams that will go into the home and then I am going to paint the 2 by 6 tongue and grove for the ceiling in the great room.  I have been working in the garage and as you can see the wood framing indicating the drywall is not up yet.
The picture shows some of the painted beams and four big ones that just have the basecoat on. 
 

To paint the beams first I applied a primer, after that dried I applied a golden basecoat. Then I started to create the wood grain by painting the beams a medium brown  with a wood graineffect.  After that dried I used two passes of black both passes very light.  I used two passes becauseI wanted it dark but would have had to use too much paint to get it as dark as I wanted with only one pass.  The light passes of the black over the brown give it a lot of richness without seeming black.  The beams look old but not distressed.

I primed two dozen fir beams today to get ready to basecoat tomorrow.  What it is, they have got a lot of outside space with a roof over it and they have these big fir beams.   A dozen are 4 by 10 - twelve feet long and  a dozen are longer almost 16 feet long and they are 6 by 12's.   The 4 x 10's I pick up by myself only because they are fir and that is a light wood.  but the bigger ones forget it.
So on the ones I can lift I have them leaning up against the garage walls.  The walls are like 14 feet high.  that way I can paint all the way around them at once.  But the big ones I have laying down and I can only paint three sides at once then have to let them dry.
 
So I primed them all today but of course its more involved that just priming.  After I primed them and it dried I had to sand all sides on them because with such a soft wood the grain raised a lot.  So... sand it down and then fill in all the knot holes and cracks, which are a heck of a lot.  Tomorrow I will sand down the filler for the holes and basecoat them but I don't think I can get all that in one day.
 
The reason they are using fir is because its outside and fir will hold up much better than pine and with pt you can't paint it.  We are painting instead of staining for two reasons.  One, painting will last about ten times longer than staining and the desired color can't be obtained on fir with a stain, so...

This week I have been working on samples for two different jobs.  I hope to start on one tomorrow or Friday at the lastest.  No pictures yet but as soon as I start I'll be able to share more what I am working on.

In the next picture I show the first step in painting a panel. I take and paint in the tapered sides of the panel with vertical strokes.

Then I paint in the center of the panel with horizontal strokes.

Then I finish off the panel by painting in the horizontal tapered edges.

I usually go down the entire row like that and even do another row while the first row is drying. Then I do the exact same procedure again with the second coat which is a different color a much darker brown. By the way the first color brown is a Ben Moore color called Pancake syrup. The second and darker color is made by mixing Black Bean Soup into the Pancake syrup color. You can see it doesn't get much darker because I have diluted the mixed dark brown with a clear acrylic exterior sealer.

Not done yet with the panels. To finish off the center of the panels I wait for them to dry and then apply a second coat of the darker color just on the tapered 'frame' part around the center. I call this 'picture framing' and you can see the darker 'picture frame' effect it has in the picture below.

The next step is to paint in the vertical pieces between the panels. So I tape them off like you can see in the picture below. I do the same thing as before. Paint them in with vertical strokes with the pancake syrup and then when that dries paint over it with one coat of the diluted darker color.

Next are the horizontal pieces that go all the way across the door. I tape them off and paint them in the same way. You can see in the picture below where I have painted in the first coat of the brown that is lighter than the other painted spaces. It needs the second coat to look good and give the door a more authentic wood look.

So all done now. The last spaces to paint are the vertical spaces at either side of the door. I paint the door in this manner because if it where real wood that is the way the grain would run. The door came out great and the client loved it.

The second shot is the side entry door to the wine store.

The next shot shows the pass thru window. The bar is right inside the window to the right and wine gets passed out to the seating in the hallway. "Inveno Veritas" is latin for In Wine There is Truth.

The big landscape part is on the oppsite wall where I had a 20 by 11 space to work with. The arched stone opening is 6 feet high and 12 feet wide. I am sure if I were better at photoshop I could get rid of the light spot in the center from the flash but...

A close up view of the wine bottle and glasses. I took advantage of the label on the wine bottle and that's where I signed the mural. You can see the texture on the wall pretty good on the right side of this shot.

Inside the stone arch (below) I will paint the lettering "Inveno Veritas" - In wine there is truth. You can see in this photo how much the stones need to have the shadowing in. Right now they look like they are floating on over the wall and not anchored to it.