Fireplace/Mantle and Painting Stenciled Walls

This homeowner asked to have their kitchen and living room painted. In the living room, we were to paint fireplace and mantle, but not to paint the built-ins on either side. We wanted to paint the mantle area with a paint sprayer in order to leave a fine finish. This meant that our process included intricately taping the built-ins where they met the mantle and crown molding, ripping dozens (hundreds?) of tiny pieces of delicate surface painters tape to follow the curves of the woodwork. An entire afternoon of masking well worth it upon seeing the crisp painted edges against the stained wood. This project also involved preparing the original stenciled walls to ensure that they wouldn't show through our fresh paint. Our customer may like grapes, but she was sick of looking at them everyday in her kitchen! We sanded everything down with a random orbit sander attached to a vacuum to minimize the dust. We then built the surface back up to level and primed everything before proceeding with paint. It came out great!