New House Series - Media Room Pt 1 - Walls Pt 3
Ok Reader,
I gave you a short break from my constant wall talk. Now we are back at it full force. Here is the situation: Wall smoothing has been an insane amount of work. All that talk of rue-ing aside, I have enjoyed it for the most part. However, the epic tale of wall smoothing is about to take a turn.
It finally appeared as if the wall smoothing was done and I started thinking paint colors. Since this room is designed to look like its night, I wanted a dark blue. It isn't a huge room, so I had to think about not making it too cave-like. I happen to like caves myself, but that is a whole separate conversation.
I settled on a pretty bright blue color. My thought was this: if the color is really bright, that will compensate for it being a room that rarely has the lights on (since its for movies of course). I bought a tester of paint. I have some questions for the painters among us. There are whole aisles in the home improvement stores of paint. I went wandering down their to pick out my paint cans and was immediately approached by 3 different employees asking if I needed help. Keep in mind that the other day I bought a miter saw and no one asked me any questions. Deadly blades: "you're good." Colorful water: "do you need any help?" I am not saying I want more people in the stores to talk to me, just making an observation as I type this with my nine fingers.
Anyway, it would appear I needed the help because literally every can of paint I got was wrong. I got white gloss for the trim. It still needed color dripped into it by the magic pain mixer thing. Isn't white the color before they add colors? What are they even adding? If you are not familiar, there is this crazy machine that measures out drops of pigment to mix into your base. There is also white pigment, apparently. Then I got a super small text kit of paint for my blue. I grabbed the wrong base because apparently it is too dark for the base I grabbed. Pint is, maybe paint is more complicated that deadly blades after all.
This is a really long walk to my point. I finally got to put paint on the wall! It is so blue I can hardly take it.
Then, tragedy struck. So this is another example of JoshPrime has very specific taste. This time, it is about paint finish. Paint generally comes in five finishes. Matte (or flatt), eggshell, satin, semigloss and gloss. The later they appear on that list, the shinier they are. They are also easier to wipe down and clean. Trim and doors are typically the shiniest, and then the walls are next, followed by the ceiling. As we established last time, every surface in this house was painted with the exact same color. All but the doors are matte finish. I hate matte finish. Therefore, I ran out and purchased satin finish paint for the walls.
Here is the problem, the shinier the finish, the more wall imperfections show. It quickly became apparent that, despite all our hard work, there were a lot of problem areas that were still showing through.You might have to click that picture to full screen to see what is going on, but there is not a perfectly smooth surface there. When shiny paint gets put on that, it is going to stand out like texture highlighter.
I'll be honest, reader. I was really frustrated. This is probably the first of many times that this home renovation project will frustrate me, but as it was my first it definitely put me into a bit of a tailspin. After weeks of work there were still really glaring problems with the wall. I knew the work was going to be challenging, but I have paint. I want to move forward. Fortunately, I gave myself a few hours on YouTube again. I would love to say I wrote down the name of the person who had this tutorial, but I haven't been able to find them again since. It was like a YouTube miracle.
Essentially, all the work that has gone into the walls focused on putting very very thin layers over the walls. This tutorial opted for a thicker (not so thick, mind you) layer and a lot more attention to the flattening. Here is a chance for me to get preachy about making things. All the tutorials that I used were amazing and done by people generous enough to share their skills and wisdom with the world. I know that they all have made great work and that they probably are better at this than I will ever be. However, just because one tutorial (or in this case 40 or so) didn't give you the piece of information you needed to make your project work, does not mean you should quit. Keep looking and keep searching and someone will have the random tip that totally resonates with you and makes the whole thing make sense.
All I needed was a little permission to put the layers slightly thicker and suddenly the project fell into place. I finished a wall in about 4 hours. I came back a few hours later after it was all dry and sanded it down. Now there are still a handful of spots that will need a little more patching, but in general the wall is smoother than I could have ever hoped.
Is it frustrating that I have written 3 posts just about this? I am sure it is. Think how frustrating it is for me that I have not worked on anything but this for so long that I only really have this to write about. Finally, the walls are really taking shape and there are only 3 walls to go - again.
Keep working and doing your best. Make cool stuff!
Until next time,
JoshPrime
I gave you a short break from my constant wall talk. Now we are back at it full force. Here is the situation: Wall smoothing has been an insane amount of work. All that talk of rue-ing aside, I have enjoyed it for the most part. However, the epic tale of wall smoothing is about to take a turn.
It finally appeared as if the wall smoothing was done and I started thinking paint colors. Since this room is designed to look like its night, I wanted a dark blue. It isn't a huge room, so I had to think about not making it too cave-like. I happen to like caves myself, but that is a whole separate conversation.
I settled on a pretty bright blue color. My thought was this: if the color is really bright, that will compensate for it being a room that rarely has the lights on (since its for movies of course). I bought a tester of paint. I have some questions for the painters among us. There are whole aisles in the home improvement stores of paint. I went wandering down their to pick out my paint cans and was immediately approached by 3 different employees asking if I needed help. Keep in mind that the other day I bought a miter saw and no one asked me any questions. Deadly blades: "you're good." Colorful water: "do you need any help?" I am not saying I want more people in the stores to talk to me, just making an observation as I type this with my nine fingers.
Anyway, it would appear I needed the help because literally every can of paint I got was wrong. I got white gloss for the trim. It still needed color dripped into it by the magic pain mixer thing. Isn't white the color before they add colors? What are they even adding? If you are not familiar, there is this crazy machine that measures out drops of pigment to mix into your base. There is also white pigment, apparently. Then I got a super small text kit of paint for my blue. I grabbed the wrong base because apparently it is too dark for the base I grabbed. Pint is, maybe paint is more complicated that deadly blades after all.This is a really long walk to my point. I finally got to put paint on the wall! It is so blue I can hardly take it.
Then, tragedy struck. So this is another example of JoshPrime has very specific taste. This time, it is about paint finish. Paint generally comes in five finishes. Matte (or flatt), eggshell, satin, semigloss and gloss. The later they appear on that list, the shinier they are. They are also easier to wipe down and clean. Trim and doors are typically the shiniest, and then the walls are next, followed by the ceiling. As we established last time, every surface in this house was painted with the exact same color. All but the doors are matte finish. I hate matte finish. Therefore, I ran out and purchased satin finish paint for the walls.
Here is the problem, the shinier the finish, the more wall imperfections show. It quickly became apparent that, despite all our hard work, there were a lot of problem areas that were still showing through.You might have to click that picture to full screen to see what is going on, but there is not a perfectly smooth surface there. When shiny paint gets put on that, it is going to stand out like texture highlighter.I'll be honest, reader. I was really frustrated. This is probably the first of many times that this home renovation project will frustrate me, but as it was my first it definitely put me into a bit of a tailspin. After weeks of work there were still really glaring problems with the wall. I knew the work was going to be challenging, but I have paint. I want to move forward. Fortunately, I gave myself a few hours on YouTube again. I would love to say I wrote down the name of the person who had this tutorial, but I haven't been able to find them again since. It was like a YouTube miracle.
Essentially, all the work that has gone into the walls focused on putting very very thin layers over the walls. This tutorial opted for a thicker (not so thick, mind you) layer and a lot more attention to the flattening. Here is a chance for me to get preachy about making things. All the tutorials that I used were amazing and done by people generous enough to share their skills and wisdom with the world. I know that they all have made great work and that they probably are better at this than I will ever be. However, just because one tutorial (or in this case 40 or so) didn't give you the piece of information you needed to make your project work, does not mean you should quit. Keep looking and keep searching and someone will have the random tip that totally resonates with you and makes the whole thing make sense.
All I needed was a little permission to put the layers slightly thicker and suddenly the project fell into place. I finished a wall in about 4 hours. I came back a few hours later after it was all dry and sanded it down. Now there are still a handful of spots that will need a little more patching, but in general the wall is smoother than I could have ever hoped. Is it frustrating that I have written 3 posts just about this? I am sure it is. Think how frustrating it is for me that I have not worked on anything but this for so long that I only really have this to write about. Finally, the walls are really taking shape and there are only 3 walls to go - again.
Keep working and doing your best. Make cool stuff!
Until next time,
JoshPrime
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