All shelves are painted

 
All the shelves are now painted! Finally! 

It took way longer than I thought. I assumed it will take me about one week to finish each side of the room to  paint the walls and the shelves. But it took more like one month to finish each side of the room. Huh, but now they are ready. How amazing is that!

For these shelves I needed to buy quite a lot of paint. I used branch varnish on places where I was afraid the resin would show through the white paint. I think I could have gotten a lot of shelves from lets say Ikea for just the price of the paints. But these shelves we had are expensive brand and they are quite versatile and good quality so it was no point getting rid of those. And new Ikea particle board furniture won't last for decades like these shelves have already done. These are the paints I used.

• branch varnish 3 desiliters (did not need as much, but it was the smallest jar I could find)
• primer 3 liters
• finishing paint (semi-glos) 2 liters

I painted twice with the primer and one time with the top paint. I had to paint the edges two times, the paint did not stick as well on the edges as on the bigger surfaces. The bigger surfaces were sanded by the belt grinder and the edges by hand and I think there was still more old varnish left on the edges so the paint did not stick as well.

What I did horrible wrong with the painting was the scheduling. I had not realized it takes so long for the top layer to dry, which was three days. The paint will feel dry after few hours, but there was this sticky feeling to it and that was only gone after the three days. I also made the painting more tiring for me because I did it actually in 5 sections

1. sanding and painting the first shelf from the other wall
2. sanding and painting the new shelves I bought used
3. painting the vertical support piece that I used as a drying stand
4. sanding and painting the second shelf from the second wall
5. painting the vertical support piece that I used as a drying stand

This makes me realize why it took so long in the end to finish all of the shelf. But it would have been quite difficult to empty all the shelves at the same go, but I atleast should have bought the new (used) shelves earlier so I could have combined painting them and the first shelf at the same time. Well... live and learn.

Ah, but how I do love them! Maybe I love the shelves even more because of all the work the painting included. I'm so happy.