Card Room Migration: Phase 3 - Paint

So the walls were all taped and primed, and now to add the color.  What scheme did you guess?  There were a couple comments that got it right.

Yep, went with the burgundy and gold.  Though it's the scheme of the present season Commanders, and not exactly the old DC Native American shade.  But it looks good.

I punched up the official colors online, and Sherwin Williams had the official paints, so I went with it.  The gold went on nice and evenly.

The first coat of burgundy, however, was another matter.

I was afraid it was going to be a disaster.  But my girlfriend is a very experienced painter and told me to trust the process.  It was just going to take a second coat (or more). 

So the second session a week later yielded much better results.  Unfortunately, it was moving day a little before that, so the furniture was in the room.

But we worked around it and it came out fine.  A few days later, we pulled off the tape. 

The tape came off easier and cleaner than we expected.  There were a few small touch up spots, but at this point, they'll disappear behind the furniture and all the cardboard.

Here's the finished product with the furniture in place, at least at that end of the room.  Baseball goes in the cabinet and shelf to the left, and football, hockey etc. goes in the set on the right.  The wire shelf with the bigger sets and Washington football lockers is still at the old house, as well as part of the binders and sets that were in the cabinets.  It will all come together soon.

Next time - Populating the shelves.

Card Room Migration: Phase 2 - Prep Work

Settlement on the house was Oct 29.  Like I said, we started moving boxes (mostly cards) immediately.  And of course, not only was there my collection, but the two dozen-ish monster boxes of my extras, plus what was left of the set collection I was selling, as well as that bulk hoard that I had upstairs.  Needless to say, everyone says I'm never moving again.  Initially, I thought about staging the bulk of my cards in the garage and then moving them upstairs when the room was done.  But I figured it would be better to keep them at room temperature and humidity and only have to move them from the other upstairs room a few steps away.  

This is only a small part of what we moved over the next couple weeks.  Not shown is the closet in this room that has a couple more stacks.  A lot of what you see here is the two other non-collection batches.  The white boxes on the right are my extras.

The old space was two rooms about the same size - roughly square and measuring around 12' x 15' or so, I can't remember for sure.  The new space is 19' x 14', though the one end is a bit shorter, but includes a closet that I no longer have to use for storing other old junk, it's just for cards and accessories.

Here's the short end of the new space.  You can see I stuffed the closet, and then brought in the paint materials.  The old house had all white walls.  This room is probably the only one I will paint a different color, even though every room in the new house has one and often two colors on the walls.  Most of the colors are nice natural shades (seafoam green, tan, grey, etc.).  The card room was the former residents' daughter's domain.  I don't imagine she was a Florida Marlins fan, and neither am I.  (I'm guessing the turquoise and black may be the local high school colors?).  Either way, I've got to change this scheme before I can set up the room.  Can you guess the colors I'm converting to?  Leave your guesses in the comments below.

Step 1 - Taping.  Had to tape both top and bottom of the two mouldings that separate the colors.  The lighting wasn't great, so it was challenging to get it all lined up right at the edge.  That took an entire evening. 

Step 2 - Priming.  Since the top section was black, and the bottom section was such a dark color, it was pretty much a necessity to prime the areas first, so the colors stayed true (hint: they're the official franchise colors - you guess the team).  The priming was pretty easy.  Again it was another whole evening.  

Here's a sneak peek at Hivemind Headquarters from the outside.

And, of course, the packing continued at the old house.

Next time - Color!

Card Room Migration: Phase 1 - Breakdown

Operations in Maryland have been closed since late October.  I started moving boxes of cards the day of settlement 😄. Except for most of my bulk Redskins and some larger sets, the majority of my collection has been moved out.

If you follow the link to my Featured post that's tagged on the Home page (just there to the right -->) of the Hivemind Headquarters as it was, you can see it looked something like this:

 

 

Well, before the furniture move, it looked like this:

 

 

This one is an "in progress" shot of the binder shelves on the right.  Those shelves were cleared and the boxes taken to the new house.  The rack is still there for the moment.  Everything is off the walls and tops of the cabinets and shelves too. 

Even the desk and shelves in the computer room have been cleared. (I'll get the posters soon.)

Stay tuned for the prep work on the new (larger) space!