Dancers paint Crestview studio's gazebo

Hannah Teel, on the ladder, and César Hernández, dance instructors at the Crestview Fred Astaire dance studio, pause while painting a gazebo on the studio's new patio behind its Elegant Vue Event Center.

CRESTVIEW — Hannah Teel, César Hernández and their boss, David Colón, are often seen in evening clothes or fashionable day wear.

Finding the Fred Astaire Dance Studio instructors and owner earlier this week in paint-dappled shorts and T-shirts is a change.

But their labors’ results are expected to delight attendees at Thursday’s Crestview Area Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours event.

The work involved the final stages of a months-long transformation of a former dirt lot behind the studio’s Elegant Vue Event Center on Main Street North into a paved, landscaped patio.

Wednesday’s painting party marked the completion of a bandstand gazebo on the patio’s northwest corner.

“It’s going to be real nice,” Teel said as she stretched on a ladder to roll paint over the side supports.

The Elegant Vue center and studio grew out of a total renovation of a former residential mission, including bringing the brick building up to code and opening its main room into a two-story atrium events hall.

The patio was for many years the site of car washes benefiting mission residents’ expenses.

As the weather cools off with fall’s approach, Colón hopes the patio will see lots of use. When it does, he and his dancers promise to shed the paint-spattered work duds for their usual dance attire.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Dancers paint Crestview studio's gazebo