If you haven’t read It All Started with Curtains, you might want to go back and catch that before you tackle this post.

Twenty years ago I decided I wanted my walls to look like they were three hundred years old.  I added heavy plaster here and there and then knocked it down with a trowel.  Then I painted the whole thing and added a glaze to the top of it so it hung up in the plaster.  I liked this look really well for a long time and quite frankly when I did it, it never occurred to me that we would still be living in this house when it was time for a new look.  The old let somebody else deal with it philosophy.  Boy did that backfire!  After 20 years I was so ready for something new.

In trying to decide how to go about changing my small primary bedroom I knew I couldn’t make any changes until I addressed the walls. 

And yet another look last year.

 I have been thinking about this for a very long time and knew it was going to be a beast.  Was I up to the task?  Well, let’s just put this off a little longer.  Maybe 3-4 years longer!!! I started to think about paint color thinking that might help motivate me, but had no clear direction.   

About 5 different paint colors on the walls here.

This is not the way you should ever start a project.  I had lots of what I like to call “givens”.  These are things in a room that I know I want to work with.  I knew I wanted to work with the new black and white quilt and the early 19th Century transfer ware dishes.  They just make music together. 

 Of course my furniture in there stays and the Queen Ann chair that I finished recovering over the summer.  But other than that I was completely open.  Other than that!  I wanted to think white and after having every white sample I own (probably 250) I ruled that out.  I am just not white!!!  I tried various shades of French Blue and they just didn’t read right in the room.  Too blue, too green, too delicate or sweet, or maybe just not me.  There was a Farrow and Ball color I love, love, loved and I thought the black on it would make for a very moody interesting room but in the end I just didn’t have the courage.  

Farrow and Ball is the one just outside the plate line, the mid blue green.  So I let it simmer, and simmer and simmer.

Scraping the walls.

I thought about just painting over the heavy plaster and in the end I just knew I couldn’t live with that.  The plaster would have to be removed.  Back in September I picked a wall to experiment on.  I started with a coarse sanding sponge and that lasted not even 10 min.  What’s the saying “you don’t bring a knife to a gun fight”?  Yeah this definitely needed a gun!  Then I tried the orbital sander and that just caused dust to fly everywhere, not to mention it was very loud, heavy and I had no control working above my head.  Then I decided the only thing to do was to get the walls wet and scrape them down.  Well, this worked but it was laborious, messy, and was just taking forever. 

 Hmm I need another plan!!!  Let’s do some research.  The husband suggested I hire someone to just remove the faux.  I seriously thought about this but I wasn’t willing to pay someone more than $500 to get the job done and now that the room is done I know I couldn’t have found anyone to do it for 500.  So the beast sat.  I washed up the walls and called it a day thru October, November, and Christmas came and went and I still had a messed up room.  Do you ever do that?  Start a project and not complete it right away?

A new year, hunting season, alone in the house for several days on end, and I was determined to get this job done.  Armed with a new palm sander, 60 grit sandpaper, and noise reducing ear muffs, I tackled this job and slowly step by step I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel and it wasn’t a freight train!  

This job took me 14 days from start to finish.  Over a week just to get the plaster off the walls.  What I found in my original work was I hadn’t primed the walls before I added the plaster.  This proved to be a good thing.  Sanding thru the plaster I got to the drywall but where there was just paint and no plaster I couldn’t sand thru the paint.  This created ridges from the drywall to the paint.  

I knew I was going to have to skim coat all these walls but rather than rolling the drywall compound on, I knew I had to trowel it on so I could be sure to create a smooth transition from wall to paint. I had quite a bit of drywall compound on the 6″ trowel and would then take my 3″ trowel and load it from the 6″ placing a line of “plaster” about 3/8″ deep.  I would then apply that to the wall making sure I spread the “plaster” evenly leaving no ridges.  I just kept working it into all the paint ridges reloading as necessary.  This gave me more control and required less sanding when I was done. This took 2 days to get the entire room skim coated. The hard way to do it but I knew it would have never worked to just roll on a watered down version of drywall compound.

Skim coat dry it was time to sand. 

 I used a pole with a sanding screen on it for drywall.  This actually didn’t take any time at all and worked great.  All toll an hour tops to do the whole room. After going over it with a vacuum and tac cloth I skim coated again in areas and repeated the sand, vacuum, tac cloth  again.

Now priming day was here.  I headed to Home Depot for a gallon of primer and as I’m pulling off the gallon another gallon comes with it and exploded all over the favorite Talbots Jeans and Cole Hahn shoes.  Not to mention their floor.  It took 10 days for the primer to wear off of my ankles!  Home Depot was great and they compensated me for my clothes and shoes so after filling out a claim I head home to start priming.  After getting that done I ended up doing it all again just to make sure everything was smooth.  Another bit of sanding and tacking and finally I’m ready to paint.

Oh, but I still haven’t picked a paint color!  By this time I’m sick of the whole mess and I just want to get the job done.  I’m tired of trying to be creative so I picked a safe color that will work with a lot of different looks Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray.  Walls, ceiling, crown and baseboard molding all the same.  I get a bit of the crown done and some paint on the back wall just for a vision and I hate it!  My off white ceiling is screaming butter yellow.  Even though I know I am painting the ceiling I am always amazed by how color can react to color.  These two colors are not friends!  

Now there is a method to my madness.  This room is only 9’6″x 13’6″ and yes, it is my primary bedroom!!!  The reason I painted everything the same is because it is so small.  I want the accents to play the music.  I don’t want the eye stopping at the crown molding or the textured ceiling to draw the eye.  By painting all the trim in a satin finish against the matte wall paint the moldings are a whisper not a shout.

I should mention that we are still sleeping in this room!  There is barely enough room to walk around the bed!  We did this for 2 weeks.  Every once in awhile there would be a huge crash and the headboard will have fallen over.  This will wake you up in a big hurry.  That happened 4 times but only twice in the middle of the night.

 I thought one coat was going to cover these walls because I had done 2 coats of primer but oh no this room was not giving up without a fight!!!  I sucked it up and got the rollers out again.

That done it was time to replace the baseboard molding.  A trip to Lowes with the truck brought the 6″ baseboard home.  I have cut a lot of molding and hung it in this house so I do know what I’m doing but my 10″ miter saw did not like this MDF baseboard.  Poplar was way too expensive.  We ended up calling Home Depot and renting a 12″ saw.  I take my SUV to pick it up and oh no this is a very serious saw and it is huge.  I first say to the nice guy behind the counter are you going to give me a tutorial on this thing.  He looks at me like I’m crazy and says you don’t want to learn on a machine like this.  He humors me and shows me how to raise the table and position the blade to make the cuts etc and we go to put it in my car.  Oh no, this is not going to work.  It’s too tall.  Plan B call the Husband!  Guy behind the counter looks at me and says why isn’t he here doing this.  I looked at him and said BECAUSE I AM THE CUTTER!!!  Is it just me or do you get tired of being treated like the little woman!!!  I get this treatment from contractors too.  Just because I am a woman they don’t think I know what I’m doing.  This makes me soooo mad.  The Husband arrives in the pick-up just before I’m about ready to deck this arrogant SOB and rescues me!!!  Or him, I’m not sure which.  Now in reality he probably just thought he was doing his job and being kind.  I’m probably just over sensitive.

Let me just say this 12″ sliding miter saw is a fabulous machine.  I’ve got to get me one of these!  After a bit of a learning curve this made my 10″ saw look like a tinker toy.  With it’s laser it made quick work and after 4 hours we were able to get everything dry fitted and the saw back to the nice guy behind the counter before our time ran out by about 1 minute to spare.

The next day with the help of the air nailer we made quick work of getting the baseboard installed then it was time to calk, and fill everything.  A paintable calk is your best friend in working a job like this.  Hides a multitude of sins. 

 That completed it was time to move everything back in.  Or not!!!  You know that headboard well, as I was shimming around on the floor doing touch ups I discovered that my dad signed the back of the bed, Aug 14th 1984! Ohhhh, I had a sentimental moment and said, “Hi, Dad, thank you!”  Not 1/2 hour later that same bed fell over one more time crashed into my freshly painted wall and did this.

Bring out the drywall compound, putty knives, paint, and paint rollers!!! Argh

The great room reveal next time.

Thanks for stopping

Shelley