A couple of weeks ago, Rebecca was contacted by a representative from Black & Decker who asked if we would like to try out one of their products. We decided to paint office 2.0 over the weekend using the RapidRoller they so kindly sent us. I have to be honest, when the RapidRoller arrived I wasn’t entirely excited to use it. Lets face it, painting is not fun — and painting with fancy products (especially consumer grade products) never works out for us. They’re often cheap and end up causing more work than what they were designed to do (yeah we had some bad experiences with gadgets when painting our stripes). So it’s safe to say I went into this thing just waiting for it to be an epic fail. I cannot believe I just said epic fail.

Setting up the roller consisted of maybe 3-4 easy steps. But the instructions confused me. Probably because I can’t follow directions and steps in numbered order. I’m special, I like to skip around. But when I stepped back and gave it some thought (actually read the directions in the order they suggest), I realized how truly easy it would be to set this bad boy up.

Then it came time to hook the roller up to the paint can and again, I must be honest – I was expecting for this thing to shoot paint all over me. But much to my surprise, the roller sucked a good amount of paint into its handle (see that blue stuff in there?!) and I was ready to paint.

For paint, we went with our usual choice of Olympic no-VOC paint. The color we chose was called Denim, a dark navy blue with some gray undertones.

To draw paint from the handle to the roller, you press the trigger and you’re set. As you are rolling, you’ll notice the need for more paint. My instinct at first was to put the roller down and go into the tray for more. But with this tool, you just pull the trigger and more paint gets sent to the roller. Going back to when the box arrived, I was expecting paint to be all over the place when the trigger was pulled. Once again, the tool proved me wrong. No mess and a clean Mike. Shocking considering I usually have paint all over me when doing projects like this.

The paint went on quite nice with the roller, but I’ll still have to do some touch up work since we used such a dark color. I guess I can’t get off that easy when painting! The roller does have a spatter shield, which is nothing revolutionary but I never used one before. It worked like a charm and prevented quite a few drips and splatters.

So best thing ever? This thing has a kickstand. No more worrying about rollers falling over and sending paint everywhere while you take a break (or in my case, a slice of cold pizza). Why hasn’t the kickstand thing been done before?

via One Project Closer because I forgot to take kickstand pictures.

Here is my only complaint. When the entire handle is filled with paint, it is incredibly heavy compared to a traditional roller (it sucks up about 1/4 of a gallon of paint at a time). But I get it; the RapidRoller gives you the added bonus of barely ever having to refill with paint (the paint is stored in the handle) but with a little more muscle on your part (to lift the handle filled with the paint). I don’t think the added weight is anything that will hinder your painting process, but you’ll feel it. Rebecca stuck to her usual edging process, but I don’t think she would have lasted long rolling. Then again she gets winded when walking up the stairs these days…

I can’t really comment on the pivoting head. I tried rotating the head when getting close to the ceiling, but it takes some adjustment to feel comfortable rolling horizontally. It seemed to have worked but I wanted to go the other way with it, like I was before and how I’m used to naturally rolling. And because I have the attention span of a 3 year old, I reverted back to the traditional approach almost immediately.

Clean up was alright. It’s an easy process, but you’ll be there for a solid twenty minutes. I was worried that if I didn’t clean this thing right, it wouldn’t work the next time around. So I patiently cleaned the roller. It all comes apart quite easily and it’s just a matter of soaking some things and rinsing others as the directions indicate.

In the end though, we painted the office probably an hour quicker than we normally would with traditional rollers and paint trays. But 20 of those minutes previously saved then goes to cleaning the tool after use (typically we buy disposable rollers and trays). I’d say we saved a solid 40 minutes using the tool, plus the time we would have spent cleaning up paint drips. Also, throw in the time I normally spend washing paint out of my hair and buying new t-shirts because I dripped on them. Maybe we’ll up the time saved back to an hour then! Not really a game changer when you’ve committed to painting a room, but lets face it, painting sucks and if something helps me save time when painting, I’m all for it.

::drum roll:: Here’s our finished product, before some touch ups we have to do (some areas are a little streaky)…

We’re very happy with the color and our process was made much easier by the fact that we didn’t have to paint around baseboards! We’re planning on adding taller baseboards in here to match the rest of the house (the builder gave us tiny ones in the spare bedrooms).

We’re thankful that the people at Black & Decker sent us the RapidRoller to give us the kick in the arse we needed to paint this room. And for the gadget that made this job less time consuming when we are so pressed for time this month!

If you are pressed for time like us but want to paint a room, you’re in luck! On Wednesday (after Rebecca finishes up her final presentation tomorrow night), we will be hosting a giveaway where one lucky reader will win a RapidRoller! Be sure to come back to enter  🙂

Oh yes, we’re officially in version control for Office 2.0; considering we mention the new office quite often these days such as here, here and here.  I’m a total geek.

Lately, I’ve been telling Rebecca that I want to frame some album art for my side of the office (and maybe hers, not sure if she wants to participate in AWESOME SIDE OF OFFICE or not).  I spoke here about painting some dramatic lyrics on the wall (dramatic meaning BIG and BOLD, not lovey and all sappy) and I certainly still want to do so, but I figured we can throw in some nice white frames in the mix to offer some contrast with some of my favorite albums inside them.

So while working today and sorting through Spotify, I began thinking about which album art I would showcase.  Of course, I thought about some of the best such as Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, The Beatles’ With The Beatles, Nirvana’s Nevermind and The Beatles’ Abbey Road.  But, quite like my lyrics on the wall idea, I knew I wanted albums that actually meant something to me.

Here are a few that are in the running.

Ben Folds Five – Whatever and Ever Amen – SongMeanings was actually founded on a discussion around a track on this album.  Pretty essential to be in office 2.0.

Beastie Boys – Licensed to Ill – Some of my first music-related memories are because of this album.

Michael Jackson – Bad – Much like the Beasties, this album was always in my Walkman.  Plus if the family wanted me to come out of my shell growing up, there was a good chance I would if Michael Jackson was playing.

Funny, I don’t think that has really changed — though maybe it’s more Justin Timberlake these days.

Beck – Odelay – One of the albums that made me want to be a DJ.  I tried doing it in high school for a couple of years, but damn, it was a crazy expensive hobby.

I can’t wait for my future son or daughter is all like, “Daddy, I want DJ equipment!” and I’m all like, “LETS GO MAX OUT THE CREDIT CARD!”.

Weezer – Weezer (or the Blue Album) – I wore the hell out of this album in my discman back in 94-95. I found the album art and insert a few years ago and I remember noticing how beat up it was. It’s one of those albums that I can listen to over and over again (and heck, I did so today).

Justin Timberlake – FutureSex/LoveSounds – This is just one of those albums that continually gets me in a good mood (and wanting to dance (oh yes, I enjoy dancing)).  And because I have a guy crush on good ol’ JT (yeah, I admit it) — though I wish he would ditch the acting gig and put out another album.

Jack Johnson – In Between Dreams – When Rebecca was away at college, we were an hour away and I would often visit on the weekends.  Looking back, my memories of those drives were listening to this album.  This album always seems to bring me back to those days.

Kanye West – 808s & Heartbreak – I’ve always been a huge Kanye fan, but this album always stands out to me.  It was a drastic musical departure for Kanye after going through so many different events.  And I loved how he was able to really tell a story in every track on this album.  Much like Weezer’s Blue Album, I can listen to this thing over and over again.

I’m not sure if I’ll go with all of these albums above.  I know there are a quite a few I’m missing (Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy just came to mind), but I guess you’ll just have to wait for the reveal down the road!

So how about you?  Any favorite albums or album art you’d think about framing and rocking out on a wall? 

Remember that dramatic painting we did for office 1.0?  And remember when Rebecca mentioned we might be taking the office upstairs once we have children 5 years from now?  Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about that room lately mainly because office 1.0 isn’t entirely functional.  It’s not the organizing-super-productive-making office we thought it would be.

Now, I’ll never paint stripes again.  (Right.  I once said I would never paint ever again, period.)  But the one thing I do love about office 1.0 are those paint stripes. Every time I walk in here, I’m still sucked in by those dramatic stripes.

So how can we do this for office 2.0?  No, no, no more stripes for me.   But instead, let me take you back a few weeks ago.  Remember when we said we wanted some lyric wall art for the dining room?

(via First Time Fancy)

Why not do this for office 2.0?  But in more of an office 1.0 dramatic way?

Imagine, if you will, that the image below is the wall that I’ll work off of.  Blank empty space, all we did was paint it a dark gray (thanks photoshop!).

Nothing special, I know.  But what if we did something big?  Like snakes on a mother-f’n plane big?

Being that we’re all about lyrics, why not put some on the wall?  I’m talking huge, though.  Like span the entire wall huge.

I’m not sure of the typography or spacing that we’ll need and want, but what I do know is that this thing has to be dramatic.  But not so dramatic that we’ll grow tired of it.  Because honestly, I’m not painting office 2.0 again.  Unless of course I can just use the paint-bucket tool.

Oh, look what I did there!

I know once we do move forward with this project, it will take us a year to decide on the lyrics.  I know I want something inspirational, but nothing too corny.  It needs to be something that I want to look at every day.

Without googling, mad props to whoever names the lyrics above.  They’re mad easy, yo.