we had professional painters come on friday to paint our two-story foyer (i'm not building scaffolding to do this!), the upstairs hallway (too much cutting-in and too much moulding), the master bedroom (vaulted ceilings, two layers of crown moulding and two layers of oddly separated chair rails), and the master bath (ditto). they arrived after 9am and left by 5pm. lickety-split, they had painted two thick coats for all the rooms and didn't even have to come back on saturday morning to touch-up. the heavens parted, the angels sang, and i was inspired. so I thought, hmm, maybe I can just knock out painting the office this weekend. let's rewind to last week's post. office = pink walls + chair rail + three-tier bookcase with mirrors + wallpaper. by the end of yesterday, I had applied one layer of wallpaper sealant (Zinsser Gardz) to cover the hideous maroon-and-baby blue STRIPED wallpaper and three layers of primer. after the first layer of peacock blue ("Stilettos" by alan + roth), the wallpaper still showed through. the only thing I hate more than striped wallpaper is maroon-and-baby blue striped wallpaper. so we're on our third layer of peacock paint, and Andy's at Lowe's likely having the same conversation with the counter that I did yesterday morning - "you're doing what? we can't mix that paint in a high gloss finish!" since this project evolved from a one-day project into a likely multi-weekend affair, thought I'd share some useful home painting tips, both from the pros on friday and from our 'lessons learned' folder.
1. don't waste time washing brushes and rollers if you have to put a project on pause (or wait for more paint). just wrap them in cling wrap (or my fave, press 'n seal) and stick them in the fridge until you're ready to use them again. if they are properly sealed, you can leave them in there for weeks, and they will still be fresh for touch-ups. changed my life forever.
2. pour your paint into a five-gallon bucket and use the over-the-side scrape-y thing. way easier than continuously moving the one-gallon bucket and paint tray around. i'm convinced the pros shaved about 24 hours off their painting time by using this trick.
3. use your one-gallon bucket and a rubberband to quickly cut-in your ceilings from the ladder. (my cans never look this shiny.)
4. when painting over wallpaper, make sure to use the right kind of sealant. Kilz just doesn't cut it. you need something that will seep into the paper and prevent it from peeling off later.
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