I'm going to go a bit into detail for those as particular as I am and considering doing this in your garage. First off, your garage is not a paint booth, no matter how much you prep it. Expect dirt to get into the paint.
Single stage paint is not going to give you a new car look.
Prep is always the most important thing. Take your time masking off, and in fact, pull all of your trim/rubber surrounds and replace afterwards. This includes door handles and mirrors.
mask/plastic your entire fender/quarter wells and in front and rear of your car, even the sides. Paint gets everywhere.
They bondo'd a lot of dings and dents, scuffed up the paint, and primed away. Primer laid great. Paint didn't so much, runs and sags all over. They claimed poor ventilation. Two fans (one out the top of the garage and one out the man door). Probably correct, couldn't see into the garage when he was spraying.
After all the runs and sags were knocked down, they hit it with another half gallon of paint (at a cost to me), (with the garage door open and another fan for ventilation). which brings paint cost up to around 500 bucks now.
Allowed the paint to cure for a week. Came back and started wet sanding at 2500, well that didn't get the orange peel out. They claimed they weren't comfortable going lower in grit because it was only single stage paint. (I don't understand paint too well, but I know they sprayed a lot of paint on her), so I pushed they at least go to 1500 grit. They did and most of the orange peel came out. Buffing went okay, but there are still scratches that should be taken out.
In short, I expected a multi thousand dollar paint job for a grand, my mistake.
After pics are a few hours after top coat, they don't show the orange peel, but it is a better looking car than it was, and it's all one color now.
I'm in the process of finishing touches, making it as perfect as I can and finding someone to buff out the scratches.
