Before I get to far ahead of myself talking about the new year ahead (which I suspect will be a great one), I want to take a moment to write about a recent home improvement project I worked on and share a few lessons I learned.
It wasn't my own home I improved this time, but my parents'. You see, as a young woman on a budget I was thinking of things I could give as gifts that maybe made use of my time instead of my wallet. One of those gifts this year was for my Mom.
Though I haven’t lived at home for many years my old bedroom looked pretty much exactly as it had when I was going to high school. My mom has begun using it as an at-home office, but she worked at my old desk and surrounded by Claire stuff. Including (but not limited to) a decoupage wall of magazines and posters.
My parents had to sleep in there during a recent renovation, and my father complained about all of the eyes watching him sleep. Yikes.
My mom is a busy woman and therefore the functional (all be it teenage-claire-tainted) bedroom remained unchanged. So my gift to my dear old mum for Christmas this year was to proved her with a much more aesthetically pleasing guest bedroom and office space.
My plan:
1. To remove the poster wall (my parents wisely had me hang up boards before I started decoupage-ing an entire wall of my bedroom)
2. To fill in any holes left by screws, or push pins.
3. To paint the room.
My Mom and I picked out some colors we liked at Thanksgiving. She decided on the bottom one, “Sierra Monkey Flower” by Dutch Boy. I liked it because it is a pretty neutral yellow and looked great in the sample picture with all of those wood tones, also it has the word Monkey in the name…
(The one on the bottom)
I ended up getting a Low VOC, primer included, eggshell finish, Dutch Boy paint that was color matched to the sample. Which brings me to lesson one.
LESSON 1: Most rooms need a single gallon of paint.
I seriously overbought on paint. I went with three gallons based on some weird internet equation. Seriously overkill.
One of the problems with the room is that it has so much furniture. After moving some of it into another room, we were tapped out of space. So, I decided to push the corner desk and bed into the middle of the room and work around the edges.
LESSON 2: If at all possible remove all the furniture from the room.
Some of the edges were almost too small for me to open up the step stool (sideways). And I had to walk all the way around the edge to get more paint. It was pretty frustrating.
Once the furniture was moved into position, I started taking down the wall. The boards were attached with simple wood screws. I removed them easily and took down one board at a time. Here it is halfway removed.
(Yes that is a Star Wars: Episode One poster you see, thank-you-very-much. I’ll argue with anyone that it is the best of the prequels.)
Once all the boards were down I also removed all the light switch and outlet covers from the walls. Then, I went around the room and patched up the holes with DAP spackle. I got the cool kind that changes from pink to white when it dries.
I even removed the old intercom (that has never worked in my memory) and patched that hole. You can see the intercom in the far left of this picture.
All of this patching, and spackling was done the day before to allow plenty of time to dry before I applied paint.
The next day I began actually painting! This bedroom had not been painted since before I was born. The light yellow color was chosen because they didn’t know if I was going to be a boy or a girl. There were crayon markings in one corner. Needless to say, it was time for an update.
So I prepped the room with painters tape and drop cloths, which leads me to my next point,
LESSON 3: Painter’s tape is for the weak.
Long before my first coat of paint was done, the painters tape had come unstuck. It was difficult to put back on now that wet paint had become part of the equation. I used a small brush to ‘cut in’ around the ceiling, doorway and windows and should have done the same for the bottom moldings too. (I learned to cut in at YHL by watching this video.)
Here is a picture of my progress. On the right you can see the wall with a single coat of paint, and on the right you can see a patched, but unpainted original wall color.
So as you can see the paint was a wee bit brighter than I imagined. I suspect our color matching was a bit off. The color did mellowed out a little when everything dried, and the important thing is that my mom likes the color.
Lesson 4: Check the color match.
I don’t really know how to do this, but I am certain there is a way. Something could probably have been fixed at the hardware store.
I played “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” on audio book while I was painting. It was a great way to stay entertained without being tempted to look at anything like you would with a movie. (The book is brutal, but very good by the way.)
Here are some pictures of the completed room. Taken at night, because, like I said, the painting took all day.
The room looks pretty good overall. Much more grown up and put-together. With the huge desk sold, and a new one on it’s way in, this room is heading towards being a much more functional bedroom and office. I think the new paint revealed how shabby the ceiling looked. So a fresh coat of paint on the ceiling may be on my to-do list next time I visit. Also there are discussions of new closet doors and perhaps fresh moldings? Oh-ho-ho dare to dream.
Have you tackled any home improvement projects lately? Have you ever tried to tackle anyone else’s home?
~Claire Out.
No comments:
Post a Comment