I apologize for the overly long absence from new posts here at The House with the Blue Door. You never realize how much a natural disaster will really affect the entirety of your world until you live through it and discover all the things that it truly changes, from where you get your groceries, to figuring out what to do with a totaled car, to the amount of phone calls you get from people wanting to help in the distribution center where you work. Let's just say that things have been pretty crazy around here for the last month or so, and I appreciate your patience with us.
Now, where were we before May 22, happened? Right, we had just shown you how we painted the back room in Drifting Dune. So, after the walls were painted the next step was getting the molding up and the trim all painted a nice, crisp white. We started with the molding.
We decided to just paint the molding pieces in an off the shelf white (Olympic no-VOC of course). We didn't even prime; we figured they wouldn't be getting a whole lot of wear and tear all the way up by the ceiling, and of course we'll update you if that decision turns out to be a bad one, but so far it's been about a month and a half and no regrets.
We did end up putting three coats on, but it went on so smoothly and took very little time, so it actually ended up taking less time than priming would have. It also helped that it was sunny that day, so the coat on the first one we painted was dry be the time we did the last one. The whole process with all three coats only took about half an hour.
After letting them dry for a few hours Jake tacked them all up with a nail gun, it was interesting trying to figure out which piece went where, if you ever take molding down at home and plan to put it back up I would suggest marking the back of it with where it came from. As it was, we just did a little puzzle piece type thing and figured it out. Next came painting the window and door trim and the base boards.
Jake taped off for me (I hate taping, so he graciously does it for me, which is good since I'm not that great at it anyway). Taping isn't always necessary, especially if you have a steady hand and a good brush, but as you can see in the picture below, the trim pieces were not very well defined from the wall, so tape seemed like the best option.
Now, where were we before May 22, happened? Right, we had just shown you how we painted the back room in Drifting Dune. So, after the walls were painted the next step was getting the molding up and the trim all painted a nice, crisp white. We started with the molding.
We decided to just paint the molding pieces in an off the shelf white (Olympic no-VOC of course). We didn't even prime; we figured they wouldn't be getting a whole lot of wear and tear all the way up by the ceiling, and of course we'll update you if that decision turns out to be a bad one, but so far it's been about a month and a half and no regrets.
We did end up putting three coats on, but it went on so smoothly and took very little time, so it actually ended up taking less time than priming would have. It also helped that it was sunny that day, so the coat on the first one we painted was dry be the time we did the last one. The whole process with all three coats only took about half an hour.
After letting them dry for a few hours Jake tacked them all up with a nail gun, it was interesting trying to figure out which piece went where, if you ever take molding down at home and plan to put it back up I would suggest marking the back of it with where it came from. As it was, we just did a little puzzle piece type thing and figured it out. Next came painting the window and door trim and the base boards.
Jake taped off for me (I hate taping, so he graciously does it for me, which is good since I'm not that great at it anyway). Taping isn't always necessary, especially if you have a steady hand and a good brush, but as you can see in the picture below, the trim pieces were not very well defined from the wall, so tape seemed like the best option.
We like using Frog Tape over blue painters tape, it seems to go up and come down easier without ripping, which also makes for cleaner lines.
Next I got to work on painting. We decided not to prime the trim either, maybe we had just gotten lazy by that point, we had been working on the room for close to two months, but I'm fine with the way it turned out, and once again we will let you know if that decision turned out to be a mistake. I put two coats of off the shelf white on the trim as well.
The base boards were a breeze, I got those puppies done so quickly I was ready to tackle the trim in the rest of the house, then I got to the windows. Ugh, the windows. I'm not gonna lie, I love the look of our wood windows, and they look great now that they're done, but they definitely took the steam out of my "Let's paint all the trim in the whole house white right now!" engine. They were very tedious and took a lot more time than the base boards did, so while I did get them all done, it took me quite a few hours to get those 5 windows all painted and looking good. I was so tired at the end of it that I forgot to take any pictures. Here's a look at them before I got them painted though.
And here's one that I just went and took right now, sorry about the yellowish tint.
So that's that for the molding, trim and base boards. Next time we'll take a look at the other blue door that we have in the house now.
LOVE the new windows! they are SO pretty!
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