Building a Paint-Spray Booth "Cheap & Cheerful"

So next on the project list for the renovation is respraying the kitchen cabinets. To do it right, I'm using my HVLP spray gun. To do that I needed two things: warmth and to not die of asphyxiation.

• Warmth because paint doesn't spray good <60 degrees. 70+ is better.
• Continuing to breath because I'm using a shellac primer and lacquer top-coat. Water-based paints have made great strides, but you still just don't get the same finish from them. But the solvents in alcohol/oil based paint are nas-tay stuff.

Not getting paint spray / dust everywhere was a consideration too.

So I've built a spray booth out of 1x3 construction-grade "firring strip" lumber and 6 mil plastic:

Why 1x3's? It was the cheapest strong-enough thing I could find. Cheaper than PVC, cheaper than 2x2's. The booth doesn't need to be 'sturdy' nor built for the ages. It just has to hold up some plastic and last a couple weeks.

The booth is 10' wide by 6' deep by 7.5' tall. The first two dimensions are so I can use a sheet of 4x8 plywood as a base if wanted. The latter so it fits easily in an 8' tall room.

The 6 mil plastic sheeting is simply stapled on to the supports. An electric stapler -greatly- simplified that!

1000 watts of shop-light bounced off the ceiling provides perfectly-adequate lighting.

There's a reason it's built next to the big bay window: ventilation. Ventilation comes from a 20" box fan cut into the back and run on high. It more than adequately pulls out fumes and overspray. Not the kind of air-handling a commercial operation would want, but it works for my purposes.

So why in the family room?

• I do have a built-in commercial-grade spray room at my motorcycle shop. But it's sized for motorcycle tanks and fenders, not really big enough for cabinetry. Plus the thought of dragging ALL the cabinets up there to paint and then all back was too daunting - and too much chance of damage.
• The next thought was to set up a spray-booth in the garage. But the garage isn't heated and paint doesn't do well at 30-40 degrees! If I was doing this in June, the garage would have been it.
• Then I thought do it in the basement. Warm, nearby, and any 'oops' won't matter so much down there... But again the thought of shlepping dozens of cabinets up and down the steep narrow stairs (and some wouldn't even fit) was too much.

So we're doing it right in the family room! Mind you, the family room is all getting repainted, refloored, retrimmed and otherwise redone after the kitchen is complete... So we don't have to be 'orthodox' about not one paint spatter or paint dust there.

Setup took less than an hour and test-spraying occurred right after.  Results soon...