The painting is now complete. We spent about 10 days painting (a little last week and all this week). And when I say we - I mean me. I painted every inch because Mat was in San Francisco on business this whole week. It was unfortunate, but he had no choice and we had to get it done.
We bought a paint sprayer. Man that thing is fun. It really did speed up the painting process. However the prep to get ready for the sprayer is killer. Took almost a full day to tape up everything to keep the sprayer off windows and doors. Because we have plaster, we knew we were going to need a ton of primer. So the sprayer worked well. Put it on nice and thick so I only had to do two coats before it was ready for paint. We used a Benjamin Moore primer that was specific for brand new plaster walls. I am glad we asked professionals for what we needed since we never painted new primer before.
The sprayer took some getting used to. I am glad we had it for the painting, but I do wonder if in the end it would have been easier to just roll the paint (not the primer - too much of that). Especially the ceiling. I fussed over that ceiling for days trying to get it right. With no lights installed in the downstairs and not much natural light coming in, AND the paint being white - I was struggling to see where I had been. Mat finally stopped me when he got home and told me to let it rest and blend and then we can see. I am happy with it now, but my goodness the ceiling was a pain.
We chose the color Absolute Zero for our main wall color. We used Marquee Paint from Home Depot. I know a lot of people don't love Home Depot paint, but I have never had problems with it. Their Marquee paint I feel is on par with Benjamin Moore in quality (and they are almost identical in price these days). It was the winner for the color we wanted. It is a blue/gray and just gives the walls enough color that they aren't white.
For our mudroom and our dining room we went two shades darker with a Benjamin Moore paint called Little Falls (who names these paints? I want this job). It is a darker blue/gray (more blue than gray) color that felt a little warmer for those two rooms. We are putting down almost white floors in the mudroom, so we thought a darker color in there would work well.
I put on all the gear when using the paint sprayer. I was covered from head to toe and even had a respirator which is highly needed. Do not skip this step when you use a sprayer. Once all the color was one, I spent the last part of the week fixing all my mistakes and getting it to a point where I could let it go until the project is over. I even did a coat of white on the trim (I wanted to do that before the floors were laid).
15 gallons of primer, 6 gallons of ceiling paint, 7 gallons of wall paint and 1 gallon of trim white and I was DONE. I am proud of myself.
Now to start shopping for that expensive backsplash........
My outfit and new sprayer. I was ready!
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