Painting an obelisk is something different. We are talking about a decorative wood obelisk for a garden. One problem paint contractors have, (that no one thinks about), is “what to do with leftover paint”. We try to give extra paint away but often no one wants it.

I’m certainly not going to throw paint in the trash and paying someone to dispose of it is crazy. I have been looking for creative ways to use the paint up. This past weekend I built this obelisk. It wasn’t hard but I was very surprised by the increase in wood prices. Crazy high. I ended up making the needed 2×2’s out of 2×4’s because I couldn’t find any quality 2×2’s. I bought Douglas Fir which is nice wood but expensive.

Douglas Fir. Strong and straight. It is going to be outdoors so we decided to prime it with STIX primer. This is a very good product. Fast drying and well it…sticks.

We sanded the piece down and gave it two coats of primer. For the finish I decided to go with Acri-Shield a PPG product. It is an exterior rated paint and a good top coat. Since we are trying to use up extra paint It was sprayed many times.

The color I used was one a previous customer had picked for their home. I didn’t think it looked very appealing on their home but it looks good on this. I also sprayed a rubberized water proofing coating on the bottom of the legs since they will have ground contact.

I’m not sure where this will end up but it will be placed outside so I will be attaching some type of anchor to the legs so it can be staked down. Don’t want it blowing over!

Painting an obelisk was easy although there was a lot of overspray. Next time it would be more efficient to roll the 2×2’s prior to assembly.