Thursday, December 31, 2009

4 Coats Later


Gracious. FOUR COATS OF PEA SOUP GREEN PAINT.
We're talking "Exorcist" here.
"Pickle Baby Food" is generous.

Four coats, though? C'mon.
I used primer.
Two should do it, right?
That's FIVE coats all together...
Are you counting? 'Cuz I was.

So, that is half of the paneling and I still have that much surface area again to cover in drywall. By the way, if you are reading this, do you have some scaffolding I can borrow?

(See my little flooring swatch up in the corner?)

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Pickle Baby Food


Well, I took my fifty dollars' worth of "Dried Palm" back to Home Depot and the nice lady heard me out and started mixing in additional pigment to get my paint darker and "more green." It was not happening. It still looked like a dyed Easter egg. Nice color for a baby nursery, not my bedroom. So, we ditched it and started from scratch with the color matched to my duvet cover. "Retro Avocado." Or, as Katie dubbed it, "Pickle Baby Food."

My Chiropractor Loves Me

This painting is moving SO SLOWLY! The recommended approach to painting knotty pine is to:
1. Clean it thoroughly with TSP.
2. Patch the knots and nail-holes.
3. Caulk the joints in the paneling.
4. Prime with a shellac-based primer such as B.I.N.
5. Paint.

Good grief, this is labor-intensive. I started with the patching and screwed up. The patch I am using isn't sandable and I didn't realize until half the room had been done. Thankfully, it comes off with elbow grease and water. Sadly, this elbow grease comes at a high price when I'm in the early stages of treatment for whiplash. Grr.

Today, however, I've gotten the first half of the room ready and I will be starting to prime. (I can't do more than half at a time because there is furniture pushed up against everything!)

The other hiccup is that while I was settling in with my "Rhythmic Blue," I noticed that Mark was uneasy. Yep, you got it. He doesn't want the blue. O.K. No biggie. I was always o.k. with green. I sneak away from the family and mix up two gallons of "Dried Palm." Slap it on the wall at home and it looks yellow or white. In the perfect light, it looks like too-light green. Hmmm.

What to do, what to do?

Monday, December 28, 2009

The Next Big Project

This is the knotty pine paneling that graces the walls of our second story bedroom suite. Until the decision was made to paint over it, it was impossible to choose new flooring. We decided to use an engineered wood flooring, but it was hard to conceive of a pretty oak against all this pine. I trekked around and looked at a million samples, but nothing looked right. Finally, when I mentioned the struggle to Mark, he said, "Well, why don't we just paint it?" Huh? Boys hate to paint real wood. I never imagined.
Here is why we NEED new flooring. The picture does not do justice to the disgusting that has become the light-colored carpet. Long ago, big buckles appeared in the carpet and it drove me crazy. Then came Ruby and she made very quick work of destroying it completely by peeing EVERYWHERE. I have shampooed this so many times... Finally, I made the unpopular-with-Mark decision to start demolition. (Watch for more pictures!) He hates the state of undone while a project is underway. To me, it looks like progress.
Here is the carrot that I am dangling in front of my own donkeyish nose on this one! It is barely enough to keep me going for all the work we're looking at, but it is something! Our duvet-cover is the green graphic print. Then, I saw this adorable embroidered pillow at IKEA. We have some red accent pieces (which is decorating-talk for "junk I've picked up along the way and painted") and I was hoping to keep them. For some reason, I never tire of the red.

That said, I am not about to paint the walls red. Mark said he trusted me to pick the paint.

Now, let me stop for a moment and say that this is the first time ever that he has articulated this sentiment. I grew up in a household where Mom made every decorating decision, so I thought that was the way life was. Not so. Mark typically likes to weigh in on this stuff. He has definite opinions and he cares. Wow. What a source of frustration for the "queen" of this castle. But he likes the funky living room paint job I came up with, so now he trusts me.

OK...back to the bedroom paint. I'm working with this yellow-green and want to keep some red and my mind keeps running to blue for the walls. Hmmmm. I got a quart of light, dusty, robin's egg blue to test out on the walls and have splotches covering three different areas in the room. I'm thinking I like it...and then an unexpected trip to IKEA brings me the gift of this Alvine pillow. It's got my colors! Yeah!


I think I'll go for it.