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i patched a few more areas on the guest bedroom door, it should be ready for painting just as soon as the filler dries and i do one final round of sanding. i moved on to the next project, which is to repaint the refrigerator doors. i put down some newspaper and gave the doors a light sanding first. then i started putting down the plastic tarp.

i set up a perimeter of plastic tarp, even using a tripod on a barstool for additional height. i could immediately that something was wrong the moment i began spraying. it wasn't so much the smell, which was strong and smelled like nail polish. rather, it was the aerosal coming from the spray can. even the fine mist, where it landed, it'd be sticking. walking around on the plastic tarp with my rubber slippers, i noticed i began sticking to the tarp immediately. i could also see the mist drifting outwards to areas where i didn't cover, thinking the spray could never get that far. i couldn't turn back at that point, just kept on spraying until i covered up at least the troubled areas (rusty spots). i removed my slippers and checked to see where the spray had drifted. onto the wooden floor were very fine white areas where the paint landed. since i didn't have any thinner for cleanup, i used the next best thing, a bottle of rubbing alcohol from the bathroom, which worked just as well. i pulled up all the plastic tarp because at that point they were so sticky they couldn't be reused anymore.

when the paint had dried to the touch after a few hours, i inspected the paint job. it was obvious that i didn't get good coverage, and there were still large areas where i didn't spray. maybe that wouldn't have been a problem, but per instructions, i actually gently sanded the fridge doors prior to spraying, so now any areas where i didn't spray had a matte finish versus the glossy finish of the sprayed regions. i would need to spray again to even everything out. but how would i do that without getting spray paint everywhere in the kitchen?

the idea i came up with was to wrap up the doors individually so they were in a pouch, and i'd spray into this tent. in theory it sounded fine, but in practice it was something else. tenting did manage to catch all the particulates, but working in such close proximity, i couldn't get a good distance to spray. also a few times the plastic tarp material touched the newly sprayed areas, sticking to them. i worked the freezer door then the fridge door, promising myself that this was the last coat, regardless of the outcome. it's an old fridge anyway, no need to spend so much effort fixing it up when i'll probably get rid of it within the next few years and get a better fridge that's energystar compliant.