Spray Painting to Look Like Granite

Yesterday I started priming shingles but it started sprinkling so I had to cut it short.  The rain quit early this morning but the shingles were too damp today to continue with priming so we moved on to something else.

Our house has two furnaces so we have two exhausts for the the two furnaces.  Unfortunately they are on the front of the house and were poorly installed.  Despite being right next to each other, they were of different heights and stuck out from the building at different lengths.  I guess the installer didn't own a tape measure.

R cut them off just before we replaced the shingles and now it is time to put them back correctly. Today we cut all the pieces and dry fitted them together to make sure our measurements were correct. But before we glue them together, we want to lightly sand all the PVC exhaust pieces.  Of course you always sand and clean up the area where you glue them together but we also need to rough up the entire exterior of the pieces because I plan on spray painting the exhaust grey to match the house. Anything to make it blend and disappear.

I also planted a pink hydrangea that should grow to about 4 ft ,which is just enough to hide the gas meter.  It should do well in this location as the dirt was quite fluffy and dark and I didn't find any clay when I dug the hole.  This area is also near the end of the downspout so it should get a fair amount of rain water.

Last but not least is the freebie that got a spray paint make over.  R was helping a friend move and they were going to throw away a short gazing ball stand made of resin/plastic and a clear crackle glass gazing ball.  The base was a bluish green and the solar gazing ball needs two rechargable batteries.  R thought that I could at least use it for one of my gazing balls so he brought it home.

I gave it two coats of spray paint with primer included in the color granite.  After the second coat I waited 5 minutes before spraying it with a speckled spray paint that makes an item look like granite.

This was my first time using this so it was kind of trial and error.  I tried shaking the can but could not get it to rattle so I tested it first on a piece of card board and I'm glad that I did.  This product is definitely a less is more thing.  Light short bursts of spray.  You can see the two test areas.  The top one is too heavy AND the bottom one is just right.

I went around the piece twice using very short bursts and keeping the spray moving.  The second pass was to fill in light areas so the finish is consistent all over.  What do you think?  Better than that bluish green.  Tomorrow I'll buy a couple of new rechargable batteries and we will see if the solar panel still works.