Eco-friendly painting

Well, there are lots of things you can do to help the environment when you paint. I did the best I could considering we HAD to pick out the colors with only 40 minutes before Lowes closed and we had gone through about twenty different ideas and not even settled on any colors. So of course we went with a water versus oil-based paint (which are much more difficult to get, and hardly anything has VOCs nowadays anyhow) I found a really neat paintbrush that was made out of recycled fibers for the bristles and bambo for the handle. Of course it was a little more expensive, but actually not by much, and I am very good about washing my brushes, I usually have them a long time. I also picked up some biodegradeable paint pan liners. It's not a lot, but it's something.





We were back and forth on colors that depicted the beach, water and sky, doing a realistic mural, or an artistic mural, or something simpler and more abstract. Time is of the essence. We are wanting to try and open the restaurant before Thanksgiving (winter break) so we decided there really wasn't time for anything complex. So we were down to colors.

We still wanted to depict a scene at the beach, we also wanted to tie into the interior of the building as well. The general theme is that of a sunset. We pulled up some pictures I have on Facebook that I took at Ft Myers during sunset a few years back. The mural (if you can call it that) is based on people walking on the beach at sunset, with only silhouettes visible, not only of the beachgoers, but of the sailboats and island-connecting bridges on the horizon. The colors turned out pretty nice we think. We have only to add the details of the silhouettes and trim up the windows near Wings, and the painting of the alley is complete.

This picture was sort of an inspiration, and the kind of scene we want to depict:



Here are some before and afters of the alley:








Hopefully soon we will get a chance to work on the sign above the door and we are working to get some sort of temporary (possibly painted) sign up in the alley that will alert passerbys to the new restaurant that is coming and the blog that is documenting it.

I want to send out a big thanks to our friends the Athertons, they made Sunday one of our most productive workdays yet, and helped us get the fridge in, take down the old sign, and paint the alley.