How Many Quarts Did You Buy?

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After painting the guest bath, master bedroom and the living/dining room the only thing left to paint was the master bathroom.  We had agreed to leave the builder grade paint in the guest room until we decide exactly what we plan to do with that room.  The guest room is pretty much a landing zone or storage room at the minutes, which clearly isn’t ideal.  Anyways, similar to the living/dining room choosing a color for the master bath wasn’t easy.  We ending up going with a color that’s a shade darker than our living/dining room after putting couple different samples on the wall.

Once we were pretty sure we wanted the color we put a big color swatch on the wall.  Do you see my reflection in the shower?  Hahaha I was attempting to document the process.

After painting the guest bath we knew that the correct paint to buy was semi-gloss.  We “assumed” the guest and master bath were approximately the same size we purchase 1 quart of paint.  We were well, WRONG!  The master bath is slightly bigger so we really needed two quarts of paint.  Back to the store I went to pick up the extra quart.  Then something disastrous happened.  We started painting the remaining wall and somehow the color just was NOT the same. I really don’t know what happened … the husband and I stood there looking at the wall and then at each other and we were seriously PERPLEXED.  In any event it was unanimous that we needed another quart of this paint in an effort to resolve the issue.

Back to Sherwin Williams we went to purchase our THIRD quart of this paint.  We were so excited to get home and make that final wall match all the rest that we  pulled out all the painting supplies and got to work.  Clearly this damn bathroom just didn’t want to be painted … I’m not sure how it happened by the roller started shedding and the wall started to look all textured.  At this point we were so perplexed I didn’t even think to break out the camera to document the disaster that was unfolding.  We attempted to wipe the wall down with paper towels and start over, but that was an epic fail leading to an empty paint can and a textured wall.

After letting the wall dry and sanding it back to “normal town” we were ready to being painting the dreaded wall again.  SOOOOO back to the paint store we went for a fourth and final time.  The husband goes in to buy the paint and when he got back to the car he looked a little defeated …

Me – “What’s wrong?”

Husband – “The just asked me if I was aware of how many quarts of the same colored paint we’ve purchased.”

Me – “Too many … but it wasn’t our fault there were so many issues.  Didn’t you tell him all the issues we had.”

Husband – “Nope.  Just told him I was aware we should have purchased a gallon at the start of this project.”

Me – “Oh okay then.”

My poor husband was so horrified that we had to purchase so many quarts that he wouldn’t own up to the issues we encountered when the sales man pointed out we purchased incorrectly. :)

After the fourth quart of paint we were FINALLY able to fix the remaining wall and put a little extra paint on the other walls. Unfortunately I haven’t master the process of having paint colors show up correctly in pictures when there is zero natural light.  Therefore there is no great “after shot”.   Sorry :(.   It was SO nice to call that project a wrap after four tries LOL.  Overall I love the color of the bathroom.  Now I am on the hunt for a new bathroom mat and accessories.  Somehow the to-do list never seems to dwindle!

Happy home improvements!

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Getting on the Red Hot Tamale Train!

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Chugga chugga Chugga chugga CHOOO CHOOOO!!!! Sorry couldn’t help myself LOL. :)

My initial plan for the bedroom was to have a dark gray accent wall with light gray side walls. I really liked the mock up I did and so did our friends and family.  We went to Home Depot and purchased a few different samples of Glidden paint.  All I can say is paint color looks WAY different on the walls than it does on the sample card or online.

Here is the room mock up I created using Glidden’s website to paint the walls and then I used PhotoShop-ed in add the bedding and my photo from Mexico:

The silver dust color on the side walls turned out to look super purple in the room.  The Seal Gray was pretty, but just not what I was looking for.  I’m not sure what the lighter gray/silver color is on the wall (in the picture below), because the husband chose it at random and we have since thrown the paint card and sample away.  Sorry for the horrible picture. This is what I get for using my old crappy camera.

Feeling discouraged that my gray accent wall wasn’t turning out as I had hoped a friend offered to help us narrow down color choices.  We got a gray duvet cover for our wedding and considering it is the ONLY duvet cover we have agreed upon in 2 years we weren’t willing to part with it.  Therefore the bedroom color had to compliment gray. Lucky for us gray is pretty neutral! Our friend suggested we do a red wall instead of the gray. I was sold on the idea pretty quickly.

The husband and I had been considering red as our accent color in the living/dining room after finding this Pottery Barn rug.  Luckily my husband has purchased a rug sample so it was easy to find a red paint swatch that closely matched the rug, BM Confederate Red (2090-20).  During one of my many trips to the paint store I purchased a sample of this paint.  It looked nice on the wall, but felt like it had too many pink undertones.  I remember my mother had said her friend had recently done a red accent wall in her living room and decided to ask my mom to ask her friend for the paint color.  Enter HOT TAMALE! It’s a C2 paint, which is suppose to be thick enough to only have to do one coat of paint.

Anyways we slapped C052, aka hot tamale, paint sample up on the wall and we had a winner!  Since the red rug didn’t match the red paint we decided to say goodbye to rug.  We are now thinking a gray rug with red accents around the room to tie everything together.  Hopefully it turns out well!

With the walls taped and the floors covered I was ready to begin painting.  Sophi supervised the whole thing. :)

I’m proud to say I pretty much painted this whole wall myself.  One thing I quickly learned while painting the red wall was to do the trim first.  Painting the trim first with a brush and then going over it (or close to it) with the roller made it blend better. When I rolled and then did the trip the brush strokes stood out more.

Although C2 paint is supposed to only need one coat we decided to do two. As it was my first time really painting as well as wanting it to look perfect the second coat made a world of difference.  I was very methodical about the second coat too and started at the left and worked my way right instead of starting in the middle as I did with the first coat.

When I removed the tape I noticed the window frame had some red on it … oops. I also noticed the tape pulled up a few small pieces of the paint around the edges.

Luckily my husband has a steady hand and went ahead and touched up the places where the paint lifted from the wall.  Now all I need to do is touch up the window frame.  Two mistakes, not too bad if I do say so myself.

Here’s the before and after of our red hot tamale wall:

I can’t wait to paint the other three walls a creamy white and then we can call the master bedroom a wrap on the painting front.  I’m on the hunt for some nice little red accents to put in the room.

What do you think of our red wall?

Happy painting!

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Painting with Eggshell vs. Semi-Gloss

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Before buying our condo I had never painted any of the places I had rented.  The only thing I remember painting was a fake wall my roommate and I had (frat boys) put up in the living room of our one bedroom apartment to make it into a two bedroom.  Funny thing about that, my friend and I only painted the part of the wall that wasn’t covered by the couch … can you say college standards?! :)

My husband on the other hand has painted before and was good about giving me tips.  He said to only put about an inch of paint into the pan and to make sure the whole roller has paint on it before painting the wall.  Then there was the tip to roll slowly at first to avoid excess paint spraying on things not covered or taped.  These were all great tips!  The one thing neither of us knew was what kind of paint finish is suggested for different rooms.

The counter top in the bathroom has green tones to it so I knew I wanted to go with a green paint in the guest bathroom.  Here’s the first green we considered, but it was too bright for the bathroom:

After slapping two more greens up on the wall there was a clear winner.  I seemed to have missed taking a picture of the other two colors we put on the wall.  We decided on Benjamin Moore Old Prairie (2143-50).  A whole gallon wasn’t necessary for a small bathroom so I was to buy a half gallon (two quarts really since a half gallon wasn’t an option at this particular store).  The first Saturday after becoming homeowners my husband was busy taping and prepping the condo to be painted.  Therefore I was on go to the store/run errands duty. Off I went to the store feeling really good about what I needed to buy.

The man at the store was less than helpful. He started by trying to up-sell me and I got completely confused on what I needed/wanted.  Eventually he took my order for the paint and then asked what finish I wanted. I said “ummmm well ….” to which he handed me a finish card to look at. I immediately remembered my friend saying samples come in flat, but get eggshell when you actually paint.  Done and done, paint mixed and purchased.

While I was gone my husband taped the bathroom and got it ready to be painted.

When I got home we painted the bathroom our new light green color.  On my next trip that same day to the same paint store to buy paint for the master bedroom, I overheard someone talking about which finish to use for the different rooms.  Keep in mind this information wasn’t on the finish card and the guy helping me didn’t offer up any narrative as to what finish to use.  As I hear the words bathroom and semi-gloss in the same sentence I start to freak out.  Have we just painted the bathroom the with the wrong finish??

When I got back to the new place I shared this tidbit with my husband. Out comes the iphone and Googling begins. Sure enough we painted the bathroom with the wrong finish.  We debated if we should spend the money and the time to repaint the bathroom the same color but in semi-gloss or just go with what we already had on the wall.

In the end back to the paint store we went to purchase a quart of the semi-gloss.  Apparently even a 1/2 gallon was too much paint for the guest bathroom.  Since the bathroom was still taped we decided it was best to repaint the room now.  Doing it right now would save us the hassle of repainting the room in 6 months if the eggshell wasn’t holding up well.

The repainting took less time since there was already a base coat on the walls.  In the end I actually liked the look of the semi-gloss better than the eggshell in the bathroom.  I’m SOOO glad we took the time (and money) to correct the painting finish error.

The husband did a great job on the taping and when we pulled the tap off the lines looked fantastic!

Interested in learning about what paint finish is suggested for each room? Click here for details about paint finishes. This website would have come in handy if we had done some research before slapping paint up on the wall!!  Lesson learned. :)

Guest bathroom painting completed … master bedroom, master bathroom and living/dining room as well as hallways to go.  Painting is time consuming, but the place is starting to have a more homey feel to it!!  Now we just need a shower curtain, mat and accessories and the guest bath will be complete.

Happy painting!

Have you had any similar painting mishaps?

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