It has been a long day. It’s 11:43 p.m. and I just wrapped up painting about an hour ago. I’m still covered in a bajillion splatters, and I honestly don’t know if I even have the energy to shower. Especially when I’m just going to be right back at it tomorrow morning.
We had hoped to start painting a lot earlier – we picked up 19 gallons of paint on Monday. We planned to prep Monday night and start painting Tuesday. Prep is usually relatively quick for us since we don’t tape very much. But this time around, we both didn’t even consider the plaster walls of our 1939 ranch. We knew there were a few spots that we needed to scrape and caulk, but we certainly didn’t expect to have huge chips of paint come off the walls when we scraped around nail holes.
Thankfully, our timeline is super flexible, so as much as we didn’t want to, we took the time to properly fill in, sand, and refill all the holes. Most of them were small, but we had three or four that were at least a square foot in size. It took the better part of two days to patch and sand everything and in the end, we know it will be worth it. We’d be pretty cranky if we got fresh paint on the walls, only for a huge crack to appear. After we finished patching, we put drop cloths down throughout the house. Even though we can easily wipe up drips on our hardwood floors, the cloths are pretty inexpensive and save us from having to be super careful.
With all said and done, we didn’t get paint on any walls until Thursday night. We started with the ceilings – not the most thrilling, but always a good place to start. By the end of the night Thursday we had managed to get the first coat on both bedrooms and the hallway that connects them. Reinforcements arrived on Friday, in the form of some friends. With four extra hands, we were able to knock out second coats on all of the rooms from the night before, plus two coats in our front living room and one in our entry way. It’s amazing what you can get friends to agree to when you offer pizza and beer!
We started first thing this morning by getting a second coat in the entry, plus a first coat in the dining room and kitchen. Bri had to work for a bit today, so I spent time cutting in the back living room and giving it a first coat. Then I moved back to the dining room, cutting in a second time and giving it a second coat. After I went back in for a second cut in on the back living room and kitchen, Bri was able to swoop in and throw a double coat on the ceilings of both rooms. Hooray for timing – I love cutting in but hate rolling.
It’s been a mixed-feelings day: we can really tell the difference the crisp white ceilings make (they were all varying shades of white/yellow-white/grey-white before), but we also just cant wait to get some friggen color on the walls! Plus, I am beyond ready to get rid of this neon yellow kitchen…
Our new color palette is more subtle. I’m hoping photos will render differently once the walls are painted – the darkest color below shows up WAY darker than it is in person. While it’s certainly a bold color, it is much more dark grey/blue in person, not black like it is showing up.
That color will be in our dining room and kitchen, where we hope it will contrast nicely against our white kitchen cabinets and white chair rail in our dining room. The darker of the other grey samples will be in both bedrooms and the lighter grey will be our new “neutral” in our living rooms and hallways. Hopefully it all plays together on the walls as well as it does in the samples.
If all goes according to plan, we should be able to get color up tomorrow! We’re starting the day by doing a second cut in and coat on the front living room ceiling, but after that, it’s color on the walls, baby!
Is anyone else doing any painting this weekend? I’m planning to do a painting tips/supplies round up once this process is done – drop a comment below if there’s anything specific you’d like to know!
