Friday, January 18, 2013

"L Room" Progress

I finished painting the "L Room" mouldings the other day. They turned out pretty well, except that I'm kind of pissed off at Rona.

Paint Rant:

As some of you might know, all my house paint is the pricey "Behr Premium Plus Ultra (Paint and Primer in One)" and I absolutely love it. It's as thick as pudding (not exaggerating here, you literally can't pour it), and it's worth every penny, HOWEVER, for all my trim paint, I wound up using Rona's "Natural White Semi-Gloss" paint. This was mainly only because back when I started, they were having a big paint sale, and I also wound up getting a few gift cards from there. The Rona paint isn't cheap at over $35 + tax, but the quality just isn't there. I literally have to slather it on pretty thick to get good coverage.

But that's not why I'm upset with them. They changed their paint labels (which already had me worried at the store). I was told that it's only a new label, and the paint is still exactly the same. Well, it isn't. It's the same shade of white (which I suppose is the only really important part), but it's not the same gloss. It's much shinier than the last 3-4 cans I've gone through. This really annoys me, but there's not much I can do about it.

Luckily, I still have a small 1/5 of a can of my original stuff left, so I can use that to finish a few spots that aren't done yet, like the Office built-in (the bottom moulding), etc. But it means that all my unfinished trim on the main floor isn't going to be a perfect match. In the rooms with the hardwood floors, all the bottom mouldings are currently removed, so when I paint those to blend into the door casings, it won't be a 100% match.

Ugh.

But at least it's still the same shade. I really regret going with them for the trim paint. I also had NO IDEA how much paint I'd be going through. To give you an idea, just the "L Room" casings (2 window casings, 2 door casings minus both jambs, and 90% of the baseboards), I went through about 1/5 to 1/4 of the can (4L/1gal). I've actually lost track of how many cans I've gone through, but I've kept ALL the receipts for the house renos since the start, so some day I'll add them all up.

End of Paint Rant

The real reason you're here! Photos!



The jamb on the main door was already painted when I did the hallway trim, but the closet jamb is pine, and I'll need to do some shellac on it before I paint it, or it'll bleed through, so I'm saving that for later.







I also got a paint sample. Quick story about this: I knew I wanted a light green. I wanted something a bit "drab" and greyed-down to match the neutral colour scheme and overall paint theme I'm going with, and I knew it might be tough to find just the right shade of light green. I have a notoriously hard time picking paint colours. So one day, a week or so ago, I was wandering around in Wal-Mart, and I saw this light green bath towel that I thought might be a good candidate. It was a band "matches with everything" kind of colour, and I could easily see it on my walls. I took one of the small face cloths with me to their paint chips, and I did an eyeballed colour match to the closest two colours. I brought those home and I tacked them to the wall in the "L Room". I had them up for several days, and I knew I always have a tendency to go too dark with a paint colour (because the big white area around the chip always makes it look lighter than it actually is), so I picked the one shade lighter from the colour I wanted, and got a sample of it yesterday. This is how it turned out.

I had also started a "Help Me Pick A Light Green" type thread on OHW (that's Old House Web for those who aren't in the loop), and I got mixed responses there (several in hard to find paint chips for my area).

So yeah, this is my first and only green sample so far, and I quite like it. It's a tad on the bright/cheery side compared to some of my other colours, but I think it could work well in here. Thoughts?







Please realize that I'm not 100% decided on this colour yet. If you don't quite like it, PLEASE SAY SO. I might want to get something a bit less pastel/nursery room looking.

I don't want too much of a minty ice cream colour, nothing too trendy, and I want it to blend-in with the other colours near it (in this case, the sand brown hallway and the light beige bathroom).

I have to say, though, it's VERY VERY close to some of my inspiration photos, though some of these have a bit more yellow in them:





This one is a bit too minty, but in the same range.

7 comments:

  1. I like the green, but I seem to have used a bunch of a similar green in my house, so it's not surprising I like it.

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    1. When it comes to paint/wall colours, greens and blues are my favourites. I plan to have at least 2, maybe 3 green rooms. This room will be green, the living room will be a darker green, and I might want a teal/green in the kitchen (either as an accent or on the walls).

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  2. I like the green quite a bit - I don't think it's minty. I'd describe it as lichen-y?

    I'm curious: what's the benefit to shellacing over pine prior to painting rather than using stain blocking primer?

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    1. It's been my experience that only shellac (either in varnish form or in a shellac white-tinted primer: BIN) is the only sure-fire way to prevent bleed-through of pine sap, tar, and knots. Even then, sometimes the shellac is not quite enough, and you have to do 3-4 coats. If you want a good example of how quickly the knots will bleed through, the arch in my bedroom had at least 2 existing coats of paint, and I added probably 2-3 coats of cheap primer, and probably 3 coats of finish paint, and after just one year, the knots are already visible. When I have less things to do, I'll have to shellac those knots, and paint it over again.

      If you saw my porch redo, I used knotty pine t-g on the exterior. I used 2 coats of shellac, and then another coat just over the knots. For the most part, 90% of the knots stayed white, but a few are faintly showing through the paint.

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  3. I don't like the green,... i love it! :o)
    On my screen it seems to have a nice grey (gray?) undertone to it, not pastellike at all. Just my two cents ...
    Can't wait to see how it will turn out. Have loved all you have done so fare, though i normally don't comment.

    Greetings from germnay,

    Jenifer

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    1. Hey! A fan from Germany! That's awesome. I'm glad that most people seem to really like the green. It does have a grey tone to it, which will match well with my other colours, but one really nice thing about it, is that since it's not too yellow, it also looks good in the evening.

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