New House Series - Media Room Pt 2 - Color!
Hey Reader,
It is time to talk color! Now that my media room is smooth and flat, I get to make it more than just a beige box. Every room in this house is nothing more than a big beige box. The builders even went so far as to paint the baseboards, the ceiling, the walls, and all the doors the exact same shade of beige. Who wants that much beige in their life? Certainly not me!
I wanted something really bright in the blue family. This room will likely be dark a lot since it will be for watching movies and playing games. Therefore, I feel like the walls need to be bright to compensate for the lack of light. Further, blue will give it more of a feeling that you are outside once the fences and car are in place (more on that later).
Before I can get blue on the walls, I need to get the box to be a little less beige. That starts with baseboards. I was really worried about painting my baseboards. It isn't that baseboards are particularly hard to paint, it is just that with carpeting I wasn't sure how I was going to avoid hitting the carpet. I decided to just try painters tape. I took a trowel I had laying around from all of that - thing I said I wouldn't mention anymore - and used the sharp edge to push the tape under the baseboard. It was way easier than I thought and in about half an hour everything was taped up.
I am using a high gloss pure white paint for the trim in all of the rooms. I like a high gloss for trim. Again, in this house, everything is pretty matte (except the doors). This room will be so much nicer once it is less generic!
I was pretty confident the carpet was safe, but I was still pretty safe with my paintbrush. Turns out, I could really slather it on there because the tape creates a really strong barrier. It isn't like when you tape off an area on the wall and you have to worry about seeping. The pressure of the carpet pushing up against the tape creates a good seal and unless you pour paint in the corners, there is no leaking!
Look how much nicer it looks with white! Even without color on the walls, the white creates such a great contrast and makes everything look a lot cleaner already. I wasn't too worried about painting outside the lines here. Normally, you want to be careful to keep your trim paint only on the trim because of the difference in finishing. However, I am using the paint with the most "hide," to cover any imperfections and so it should easily cover any finish in small amounts. I painted the ceiling the same way, using a high hide ceiling paint as well. Then I taped my edges along the ceiling and the trip to prepare for color! The ceiling edge is really not that important, since there will eventually be crown molding to cover any major issues. The baseboards are pretty important, though I do plan on running a small bead of caulk across the top of them that will hide a lot of small errors too.
That is some shade of blue, let me tell you. The doors look really dirty now against the white trim, but I am planning on replacing them with wooden doors and didn't have huge amounts of high gloss white to spare on temporary doors. The paint said it would cover in one coat, but that is almost always a lie. There were some spots that aren't perfect, where the primer was thicker than I intended, or where the paint had trouble covering where it was supposed to. If I ever change the color, there are some spots that I will sand down a little, and probably still use the more expensive high hide paint a few more times until everything is perfectly smooth.
At the end of the day, two months of work and the room is finally painted. I could not be happier with it, and neither could the stuffed animals that will be calling that room home soon!
I could not be more pleased with how this project has turned out. The last step was to replace the outlet covers, the AC intake, sprinkler and smoke detector.
I leave you with one final image and ask, "Is there anything as sexy as this?" The answer is obviously no.
Keep making cool stuff,
Until next time,
JoshPrime
It is time to talk color! Now that my media room is smooth and flat, I get to make it more than just a beige box. Every room in this house is nothing more than a big beige box. The builders even went so far as to paint the baseboards, the ceiling, the walls, and all the doors the exact same shade of beige. Who wants that much beige in their life? Certainly not me!
I wanted something really bright in the blue family. This room will likely be dark a lot since it will be for watching movies and playing games. Therefore, I feel like the walls need to be bright to compensate for the lack of light. Further, blue will give it more of a feeling that you are outside once the fences and car are in place (more on that later).
Before I can get blue on the walls, I need to get the box to be a little less beige. That starts with baseboards. I was really worried about painting my baseboards. It isn't that baseboards are particularly hard to paint, it is just that with carpeting I wasn't sure how I was going to avoid hitting the carpet. I decided to just try painters tape. I took a trowel I had laying around from all of that - thing I said I wouldn't mention anymore - and used the sharp edge to push the tape under the baseboard. It was way easier than I thought and in about half an hour everything was taped up. I am using a high gloss pure white paint for the trim in all of the rooms. I like a high gloss for trim. Again, in this house, everything is pretty matte (except the doors). This room will be so much nicer once it is less generic!
I was pretty confident the carpet was safe, but I was still pretty safe with my paintbrush. Turns out, I could really slather it on there because the tape creates a really strong barrier. It isn't like when you tape off an area on the wall and you have to worry about seeping. The pressure of the carpet pushing up against the tape creates a good seal and unless you pour paint in the corners, there is no leaking!
Look how much nicer it looks with white! Even without color on the walls, the white creates such a great contrast and makes everything look a lot cleaner already. I wasn't too worried about painting outside the lines here. Normally, you want to be careful to keep your trim paint only on the trim because of the difference in finishing. However, I am using the paint with the most "hide," to cover any imperfections and so it should easily cover any finish in small amounts. I painted the ceiling the same way, using a high hide ceiling paint as well. Then I taped my edges along the ceiling and the trip to prepare for color! The ceiling edge is really not that important, since there will eventually be crown molding to cover any major issues. The baseboards are pretty important, though I do plan on running a small bead of caulk across the top of them that will hide a lot of small errors too.
That is some shade of blue, let me tell you. The doors look really dirty now against the white trim, but I am planning on replacing them with wooden doors and didn't have huge amounts of high gloss white to spare on temporary doors. The paint said it would cover in one coat, but that is almost always a lie. There were some spots that aren't perfect, where the primer was thicker than I intended, or where the paint had trouble covering where it was supposed to. If I ever change the color, there are some spots that I will sand down a little, and probably still use the more expensive high hide paint a few more times until everything is perfectly smooth.
At the end of the day, two months of work and the room is finally painted. I could not be happier with it, and neither could the stuffed animals that will be calling that room home soon!
I leave you with one final image and ask, "Is there anything as sexy as this?" The answer is obviously no.
Keep making cool stuff,Until next time,
JoshPrime
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