Thursday, February 4, 2010

Fresh Paint

One of the temporary but necessary jobs that we wanted to do before living in the new space we purchased was to paint the upstairs bedrooms and hallway ceiling and walls. It's only temporary because all the walls require insulation and we will be removing the old wallboard and replacing it with drywall. We wanted the rooms painted in a color that we could live with and also something suitable to our childrens tastes. The bedrooms walls were initially dark colors and poorly painted, we new that we had to lighten them up to make the small size bedrooms appear larger and brighter. We actually painted the walls after I had removed all the old flooring but before I installed my laminate flooring so I wouldn't make a mess on my new flooring job. Because my daughter is a 5 year old there was no other choice for her bedroom walls, she wanted the world famous Pink! My 3 year old son loves the outdoors and enjoys playing in the trees and grass so I knew right away that he would love a natural looking green, we went with a shade of green that we made from a darker shade for sale as an off color. I added some Base white to lighten and achieve the effect we were looking for.  Both the bedrooms turned out great and the kids love them!

Things to consider before painting any room are to make sure your walls are flat. Tape off everything you don't want painted, remove socket and switch covers, cover floors/furniture and other than that sometimes no additional prep work is required at all to paint a wall, if there are pin holes - they will most likely be fine, just paint over them. If you have screw holes, marks, scratches or dents you want to slightly scuff them up with sandpaper, then smooth out and use some thin drywall putty over the holes, dents and marks. If you have bumps or bubbles on the wall you can sometimes push them back in with the butt end of a screwdriver, sand them down smooth and add drywall putty when necessary. If you see where the drywall pieces meet (from a past poor putty job) then use a wide drywall trowel and smooth it out on both sides. Sand the dry putty with a fine sandpaper gently. Things that look like they might show on a surface all can often be manipulated enough until they feel smooth and flat, most likely you won't see it on the wall after that point. Always brush off the excess drywall dust before you start to prime and paint, sometimes the dust fills the holes and when you paint it rolls right out leaving a mark or small inperfection on your surface.  Priming a wall prior to painting will help fill any small little marks that are hard to see with the naked eye. If your doing lots of drywall putty sanding make sure to have a well ventilated room, sometimes a shop vac will help during sanding.

No comments:

Post a Comment