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the attic, part 7 -- priming & painting
impressing a paint salesman with our
mad excel skillz
One of the best parts of
finishing the taping, mudding, sanding, and
texturing (besides being done, natch), is
moving on to the next phase: painting!
But first, priming. Prep
work isn't exactly my favorite thing and when possible,
I skip the priming step. But this wasn't a
case where we could do that, of course. And, because we were painting the
closets, too, they needed to be primed, also. At which point we pretty
much figured out that we having been doing one large room, but actually
one large room and two smaller ones -- the main room, the long eave
closet, and the two shorter closets (counted as one). I mean, think about
it: the main room is 558 sq.ft., the long closet is 115 sq.ft., and the
two smaller closets are each 42 sq.ft. That's 757 sq.ft, about the size of
our first apartment!
If you're a regular
follower of all our home improvement [mis]adventures, you know that I am
not afraid of color. In fact, if you've ever had to listen to my diatribes
about people who choose, when presented with the millions of color options
available to them, white or off-white, then you know that it's a subject
that I'm totally passionate about. Color Is Your Friend.
It should come as no
surprise, then, that Sal and I decided on 4 different colors. What
will come as a surprise is the relatively subdued nature of our choices.
Well, most of them, anyway:
Keep in mind that the
colors didn't scan true and that various monitors display color
differently (even on my monitor, they came out more yellow than they
actually are), but you get the gist. Because there are only two windows in
the attic, we needed to keep things as light as possible. But because this
room will be our retreat from the world, we also wanted it to be warm,
especially on those cold, rainy days when we're curled up in the dormer in
our pj's with a cup of cocoa and a good book. Or coffee, if that's more
your speed. In fact, the tannish colors were inspired by the fancy
schmancy espresso drinks that are the mainstay of the Pacific
Northwesterner's daily ritual. And then, of course, the splash of dark
purple, because duh.
Anyway, there were
measurements to take and areas to figure out and quantities to calculate,
which means of course: spreadsheet! Huzzah, huzzah, it was time to whip
out my trusty ol' Excel and put together a snappy spreadsheet, complete
with color-coding and itemized filters. Am I a complete and total dork?
Why yes, yes I am.
BUT! Not as dorky as you
might think. After conferring with our handy paint sales guy over at
Miller Paint (buy local, buy quality) about paint sheens and primer types
and deciding what we needed of everything, he asked for how much we needed
of each one. At which point I pulled my spreadsheet printout out of my
purse and laid it out on the counter for him. I started to read off the
quantities we'd need for each color and he interrupted me, putting his
hand down in the middle of the sheet. "You know, I have to tell you," he
said, "I've been doing this for almost 15 years now and I've never seen
anyone as organized as this. It's really great." I think he might have even choked up over
it, and I'm fairly certain I saw a tear in his eye, because I'm awesome like that.
We enlisted the aid of
our super friend
extraordinaire once again, who helped us prime everything and kept us
laughing for good measure. And introduced us to the wonders of the paint
pad, her painting weapon of choice. She can paint walls, corners, trim,
and windows with this one tool that it takes us lesser mortals a
combination of brushes, rollers, and foam to accomplish. And thanks to another very good and generous
friend, who had five gallons of off-white paint leftover from painting her
house, we were able to paint the closet interiors absolutely free. (We had
originally planned to
get paint
from Metro for the closets; if you're looking for affordable latex
paint, your local paint recycler can be a great resource and they usually
offer a fair selection of colors.)
[photogallery/atticpaint1/real.htm]
Other than the accent wall
and the stripes (and the dormer being a darker color than the rest of the room),
we didn't do any special wall finishes like we did in the living and
dining room so the painting itself was pretty straightforward. However, if
you'll recall, we had signed up to
have the fantabulously awesome stars painted on our ceiling way back in
October and we were working on a deadline to at least get the back
third of the attic finished, where the star treatment (heh) was going to
be painted. We did manage to get that part of the room done in time and
then when the stars were finished, we finished the rest of the room and
the closets.
The stars, by the way, are
the most amazingest thing, like,
ever. I know some of you were skeptical when we first told you about
it, though you've certainly expressed a lot of interest judging
from the amount of email we got on the subject. But now that it's up, I
can honestly say that it's every bit as awesome as we had hoped it would
be. As can our multiple visitors who've seen it firsthand for themselves,
since a visit to our house is no longer complete without tramping
upstairs, blocking off the windows, and sitting in the dark to point out
the constellations on our soon-to-be master bedroom ceiling. We have an
arm of the Milky Way, six of the Seven Sisters, more constellations than
we can name, two comets, and a crescent moon. Best. Anniversary Present.
Evah.
The whole process took the
painter guy about three hours. He painted everything in the dark, which I
guess makes sense when you think about it. They use a kind of
phosphorescent paint, though all but the biggest stars are invisible when
the light are on and even the ones you can see in the light are
inconspicuous. Unfortunately, we have no pictures of it for obvious
reasons so you'll just have to trust us that it's as cool as we say it is.
And really, our word should be enough for you, because when have we ever
led you astray?
It took five gallons of
primer to do the main room, trim, windows, and the closets, four gallons
of the "Desert Castle", and a gallon each of the other three colors. For
the closets, it took about a gallon and a half of the five gallon bucket
our friend gave us.
[photogallery/atticpaint2/real.htm]
We didn't actually paint
the stripes until after the floor was refinished; once they were up, the
whole room really came together. They did what I hoped to accomplish,
giving the illusion that the kneewalls are taller than they are and
"lifting" the ceiling a bit. The effect is subtle, but noticeable.
Once we finished painting
the room and closets, we finally felt we were nearing the end of the
project. That's one of the things I just love about paint, that it's a
real transition from a work-in-progress to a finished project, where all
the various aspects of a project, especially a big one like this, finally
come together and that picture you've had in your head the whole time
suddenly comes to life. We could envision our little reading nook in the dormer, the
breakfast area over by the top of the stairs, the bed and nightstands
against the accent wall. There's still all the trim
-- 508 ft. to be exact -- and the windows to finish painting, as well as the
banister and the stair rail, but we're nearly done with painting, which
means we're nearly done!
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