Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Paint Prep Progress

After a month of house projects, planning and research, we needed a few days off! Wanting to get as far away from houses as we could, we headed out on a backpacking adventure with some friends.

Now that we're back we're hitting the ground running and getting closer to painting! Over the last few days we've bought more paint supplies and application tools than I knew existed. We have four 5-gallon buckets of primer, ceiling paint and trim paint ready to get on our walls!

Somehow we thought once we finished spackling we were pretty close to ready to paint but every day we keep finding more preparations that need to be done. We have the master and guest bedroom floors masked and covered with plastic. We've removed most everything that was applied to the walls except for the cable wall plates which are on so tight I don't know how we'll get them off. We removed an original cast-iron (read heavy) vent cover that some genius decided to caulk and seal onto the wall. Then we discovered we had to fix cracks, spot prime and re-texture many areas on the ceiling and walls. Then the (incredibly ugly) light fixtures have to be removed. This is a battle I started last night and still haven't won. There is currently one stubborn fixture dangling by wires from the ceiling with two screws that refuse to come out. Now that the blood has returned to my arms, I can try again tonight.

The color picking process began by painting boards I found in the basement with our sample colors. I took six colors I love from Restoration (rip-off) Hardware to Lowe's and had them match it. Four warm color options for downstairs, and two cool greens for upstairs. After doing a lot of research, I decided on a very sublte green for the rooms upstairs and a slightly darker green for the stairs and hallway. Green is opposite (aka complimentary) orange on the color wheel and with so much orange in our Douglas Fir floors I think green walls will be the perfect option. Judging from the color sample boards that still need one final coat of paint (you can still see a little dark wood through the paint), the green colors are going to be perfect! We are doing 'Ultra White' trim and doors which will help make the subtle color of the bedrooms pop. Can't wait to see the finished product!





2 comments:

  1. The darker green looks very similar to the color I did in Lawson's room. Love it! : ) Good luck with the final prep work... you'll be so glad you did it. I learned the hard way it is SO worth taking the extra time to prep it right.

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  2. That was a good idea to use the Restoration colors, but to have it mixed at Lowes. I've used the Restoration paint in my living room and entry and it is not very high quality. I've since switched to using Devine paint (available at Miller) which is very nice to work with.

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