Painting projects
Posted by Rebecca, January 12th, 2011
Lately I’ve been dying to paint something. I’ve been thinking of the powder room or office, but mostly I would love love love to paint our master.
The problem with this is with the new trim, wall and french doors we had installed when we added hardwood floors upstairs, this is no simple project. We can’t just throw some paint on the walls, we have to….
1. Caulk the trim
2. Prime the new wall and doors
3. Paint the many walls
4. Paint all of the trim
5. Stencil wall behind bed
Now, our master is not your simple 4 walls type of room. It has cathedral ceilings…
A sitting room, which I’d like to paint a different color than the rest of the room…
This one is obviously a ‘before’ picture- when we still had carpeting and no wall, but it is the best view I have of the sitting room size since there is no light fixture in there and the new wall makes it extremely dark. It’s on the to-do list 🙂 But anywho, it’s a large room in itself. Our main bedroom part is about 17’x19′ and the sitting room is about 14’x12′ I believe. So that’s approximately 491 square feet to paint! Oy!
Since I referenced this picture in yesterday’s post and it’s a good view of our bed area, I figured I’d share. The messy bed, clothes on the floor and cat conference going on just add to it’s charm…
Once again it’s a pre-hardwoods, pre-wall picture, but it’s entertaining and it shows the size of the room pretty well. This one was taken from the sitting room, looking into the main bedroom part.
What you see in that picture is the only furniture/stuff we have in our bedroom. Paper blinds, no paint, no pictures…NOTHING. It is like a blinding sea of white in the morning. We know we’ve put the office on the back burner, but because of my inability to sleep well and my need for a little sanctuary, I think this will be tiptoeing its way up on the list.
This wouldn’t be the largest and most complicated paint job we’ve undertaken. When we had our condo, we painted our connecting kitchen, dining and living rooms, 3 different colors, with angled ceilings at a maximum height of 12 feet. Oh did I mention that this was the first time either of us had ever painted a room? And that we didn’t have a proper ladder, or really any money for paint and supplies?? Oh and we accomplished it in one weekend? Here are some pictures of the hard work we accomplished in 2 days…
We actually repainted all of these walls about 2 years later because we didn’t like the colors we choose. Another lesson learned, looking at your old pictures will make you cringe. But when we toned down the colors a little (and went more beige than peach), we had it professionally done. This experience was traumatic for us, plus Mike put a huge hole in the drywall that needed to be patched beyond his skills, so a professional painter was key.
Long story short, as much as I’d love to tackle my major painting plans this upcoming 3 day weekend, I’m traumatized by past experiences. I’m thinking this will be a project we’ll tackle piece by piece, over many weekends. Lesson learned 🙂
ps- you know you love the arrows I drew up there! 🙂
Tags: bedroom makeover, condo, first-timers, painting, stencil, trim work
um…. I cant stop looking at the babies. eff the paint. They’re playing with their toy! =)
I kid.. paint is MAJOR!
Haha we call them our little pack of lions because they’re always together and always in whatever room we’re in. They’re professional photobombers!
I think breaking this into pieces sounds like a good plan. I usually try to do too much at once with painting (“oh we can get all this done”) and then I’m exhausted and upset later.
That is exactly what I do! And I know that cramming this into even a 3 day weekend is too much to expect of myself. Even though I just want to get it done!
A bit off topic, but let me tell you something about that little plastic circle that has the ball inside. At first, our cats were scared of it. They didn’t know what to think of it. Then, they figured out how it worked, which was great, because it’s really entertaining for them. Except they got really really into it. Like, fighting over the ball into it. And it wasn’t while we were at work, it was about at 3:30 in the morning. All I could hear was that little ball going around and around and around in that circle, the cats batting at it to go faster and faster and faster…….ugh. At least they’re better with it now…
And as far as the painting goes, it seems to be one of those things that is very deceptive. “Oh, I can get this done in a weekend…” turns into “We gotta cut those lines in the ceiling a bit better, we gotta cut in around the fixtures, and even though its 11:45 at night, I want to get this room done before I go to sleep.”
At least that’s been my experience in helping others out.
That toy is definitely loud and scary in the middle of the night! But Macky was obsessed with it for a while and it was the only toy that would entertain him when he was alone.
And I totally aim high and think that a weekend is sufficient time to do anything and everything. We started painting our closet at like 9pm and we were up until like 2…
I just have to say you guys did an AMAZING job on that condo paint job. I would be so scared to go for it like that. I am totally afraid of committing to color and so is my hubs. Good thing our new house came with “designer paint color” only every room is the same color so a little boring. Love the cat conference by the way. Hilarious.
Thanks Heather! We got it done and proved we could do it, but we were in pain and exhausted for days. At least it made the other rooms seem like cake 🙂
I am available most weekends (probably starting in Feb after we decide on a venue) to hang out/paint/play with kitties. All I need is for you to pick me up/drop me off at the local train station!
It’s a deal!!! You have to come see the house regardless!
WOW! What a HUGE bedroom… I seriously wish we could have a room like that 🙂 It will come in handy with all of the changes we have coming this year haha.
I know it’s a lot of work, but so much potential and I know you will make it look gorgeous! I’m excited to follow along!
Thanks Kerry! The first thing everyone who sees our sitting room says is that it would make a perfect nursery… I can’t wait to see yours!!