Whilst discussing office plans last week, a few of your comments about the blue trim situation in that room were the push that we needed. We were fooling ourselves to think we should paint all that trim by hand (we’re talking baseboards, crown molding, and five windows totaling 66 individual panes). So we decided to bite the bullet, break out the paint sprayer, tape everything off, cross our fingers and toes that we didn’t get any bleed-through on those wood floors, and say hasta la vista to some more blue trim this weekend.
We had painted all of the upstairs trim with the sprayer before we moved in and before the new floors went down, which was an easy no-brainer decision (nothing to worry about ruining). But for the downstairs trim that we’ve tackled (just in the kitchen and foyer so far) we’ve worked by hand – mainly because those rooms needed to remain functional during painting, so we didn’t want to cover them with paper, plastic, and tape while a fog of paint-spray flew through the air. The office, however, didn’t have much furniture to move out, and could easily be sectioned off in a paint quarantine for a few days. So we went for it.
Last Thursday morning we emptied the room (except for the file cabinet, which was heavy enough that we decided just to cover it) and basically took over the dining room and foyer with all of the displaced items. Good thing we’re comfortable with chaos by now.
As excited as we were to attack this blue trim using a new method (we’ve never taped off a room to spray it before) we were both curious to determine if we felt like it was ultimately much of a time saver, since the prep is obviously a lot more intense. Although some things – like wiping down the to-be-painted surfaces and taping off the floor – would’ve happened anyways.
Next we rolled rosin paper out all over the floor since we’ve learned that paint mist gets EVERYWHERE from our particular brand of sprayer (which I’ll admit I’m growing less enamored with – we’ve since switched to this one). We did our tape edging and our rosin paper as separate steps, just so we could focus on getting the taped edges nice and secure (paint on the hardwoods = our nightmare) before shifting our focus to taping each row of paper down. It meant that we ended up using more painter’s tape than we probably needed to, but the extra precaution felt like good nervous-first-timer insurance.
So here’s the room with the floors all taped over. Clara thought it was the coolest thing ever, especially when we let her come draw on the floors while we worked on the next prep step: windows.
I’ll admit I was a bit perplexed about what to do with the windows. I’ve heard lots of talk about “liquid masking film” that you can paint on your windows before spraying, which helps the dried paint just peel off seamlessly afterwards. It sounded awesome, but after reading some message boards it started to feel too good to be true. Lots of pro painters complained that it took 2 or 3 coats of it to work, so most recommended just doing the old fashion scrape technique anyways.
Wanting to save ourselves a bit of trouble, Sherry came up with the idea to roughly cut some rosin paper squares and tape them to the center of each pane. We didn’t meticulously cover every edge, but figured this would at least save us time on the back-end from scraping the entirety of each of those 66 panes. I left one empty just to test if the paper was a waste of time (spoiler: it wasn’t – that uncovered pane was a giant pain!). Oh and that big paper-covered thing between the windows is Sherry’s overflowing bulletin board full of Clara-art that we decided to just cover instead of removing (it was nailed right into the wall at the four corners as opposed to hanging on a hook).
With furniture out (or covered), floors protected, and windows “dressed” our last prep step was to seal off the office from the rest of the house. We carefully taped up a tarp across the doorway (on both the inside and outside of the door frame) and then used this handy instant zipper thing we found at Home Depot (it basically sticks to any tarp and then you slice an opening as you unzip it, giving you a resealable doorway in your tarp. Best $10 we spent on this whole project. That thing was airtight, which meant it single-handedly kept all of that swirling primer and paint dust from sneaking out into the foyer (while still allowing me to enter and exit the room between coats for a lot less hassle than a taped off tarp would provide).
Next, Sherry saluted me and wished me luck as I loaded in all of my supplies: paint sprayer (lately we’ve been using this Wagner sprayer), extension cord, and a can of primer (we used Kilz Premium). I also got dressed in the painters suit and booties that I bought and told Sherry to send reinforcements if I didn’t emerge in a few hours. I don’t know why, but I was actually kinda nervous about how this would go.
Well, it didn’t go great. At least it got off to a rocky start. For starters, my paint sprayer immediately got clogged, so before I could aim it at any blue trim, my hands were covered in primer and my sprayer was sputtering and leaking. About 30 minutes later, I was finally spraying. By this time it was about 4pm, and between clouds rolling in and all the paper on the windows, the room was suddenly pretty dark. And it only got darker as I sprayed the windows with primer. I’m so used to this room being crazy bright that I hadn’t even thought about needing a work light. Oops.
I actually didn’t own any work lights that we didn’t mind getting misted with paint spray (between this and just recently buying a dolly, you guys are probably questioning our preparedness) so I ran out to Home Depot after I was done with the primer coat and bought a couple, along with the trim paint that I’d need the next morning (Simply White in semi-gloss by Ben Moore – but here are some other top white paints you could use instead). The lights revealed that my priming wasn’t perfect, but it’d do the trick.
After letting the primer dry overnight (and thoroughly cleaning and de-clogging the sprayer) I woke up early the next morning (Friday) ready for my first coat of paint. This is the room right after I finished that coat. Note the paint fog.
After cleaning the sprayer once again, I let that coat dry the entire day since we had showhouse stuff to do that afternoon in Northern Virginia. I was hoping the next morning (Saturday) would just be a clean up day, but we weren’t entirely satisfied with that single coat of paint. It did a great job covering, but it didn’t get all of the various nooks and crannies of the trim.
This was one of my fears about spraying this room because it’s virtually impossible to get all of the angles and sides of the trim in one swoop, and you can’t just go back right away and spray from a new angle because you’ll apply too much paint and get drips. So instead of getting to dive into clean-up with Sherry on Saturday, I did a second coat of paint in an effort to get those spots that the first coat missed.
So now we were on Day 3 of paint quarantine in our office, which was also looking not so pretty from the outside. Luckily by now I think the neighbors are used to us always being the middle of a project, so it doesn’t really raise many eyebrows anymore.
We let the second coat dry all day Saturday, and started the clean-up process yesterday morning. You can tell by the photo above that our homemade window coverings were far from perfect. We learned just how imperfect they were as we started to peel them off… leaving chunks of rosin paper stuck behind in various places. I was ready to curse our decision, and the time we had invested, in those quick little coverings.
Sherry and I tag-teamed window scraping, since neither of us had the stamina (or the hand strength) to scrape 66 windows clean ourselves. The coverage was so thick (one coat of primer, two of paint) that it took lots of effort to peel it off, but some serious scraping did the trick. In the end, the best method we found was using straight razors to get most of the windows clean, and then going back to scrape the corners with an exacto (we also tried using a putty knife for those corners, which was a little bigger and harder to control, but also worked semi-well).
This basically ate up half of our Sunday (with breaks to feed Clara, hand her a few new activities, take bathroom breaks, etc). It sucked. I won’t lie. The whole time I was brainstorming what I’d do differently and it mostly boiled down to not owning windows, which I don’t think is a great solution.
But I said above that we don’t regret the rosin squares. That’s because the pane that we’d left completely uncovered was ten times worse. Maybe even a hundred times worse. My fantasies of this one magically peeling off in one giant sheet were far from reality. It was hard and grippy, so we could only chip it off slowly. It took Sherry a good 30 minutes to do just this one pane.
But by around one in the afternoon we had them all cleaned and enjoyed a nice celebratory lunch. It was glorious to have our bright office back (and even brighter).
We considered calling it quits from here (our hands were both aching) and we thought it might be nice to leave the paper down while we painted the rest of the room (walls & ceiling), but I was getting paranoid that our rosin paper on the floor had only performed as well as it had on the windows (I was picturing giant blobs of paint having leaked through) so we went ahead and peeled it up. And it was PERFECT. Phew!
So here’s the room as of now (Sunday afternoon, when I’m writing this). It’s looking a bit gnarly with all of the over-spray beyond the trim on the walls and ceiling… but there’s no blue in sight!
We’re excited to go ahead and paint the ceiling and walls, since we figure it’ll be easier with all of the furniture still out. And we’re used to painting without the floors being completely covered, so there was no harm done by pulling up all that rosin paper.
But our trim-painting task isn’t quite over. For some reason my second coat of paint was especially drippy (once again, I’m less enamored with our sprayer than ever – we now use this Wagner sprayer), so we had to sand down a bunch of spots that are still in need of some paint touch ups by hand.
But before I break out the touch-up paint, we still need to do some caulking. I didn’t realize how rough some of our trim was looking until it was all painted white. So there are a bunch of spots where the moldings and walls meet that need some filling.
I also never noticed how yellow the paint was in there until now. Sherry and I are still debating colors. We’re both thinking of something nice and light, but not white – and maybe with a hint of color. Not sure yet. Though you can see below that we’re starting to tape off where things like the built-ins might go, just to try to picture everything and make a final call on layout/placement.
Oh, but the verdict on spraying vs. painting by hand? I’m not totally sure yet. Spraying was definitely WAAAAY faster when you just measure the time spent painting. It took me just about 30 minutes to do a single coat, so one primer coat and two paint coats were a total of just 1.5 hours spent spraying – versus a single coat probably taking around 4+ hours by hand. But we’ve still got some kinks to work out in our prep/clean-up system before I’m convinced it’s less trouble overall (for example, when we paint by hand, we don’t get nearly as much on the windows so it’s a lot easier to scrape, and we don’t have drips in the trim that we later have to sand and touch up).
I’d love any tips or suggestions from those of you who are more well-practiced in the art of paint spraying. We plan to spray the dining room when the time comes since, like the office, it has little furniture and can easily be sectioned off. So I’d love to work out some kinks before taking that room for a spin – and then share all the “this worked better” tips when we get ‘er done. Can you believe that room is our last room with blue trim?! It’ll be a big day when it’s done.
Lauren says
Could you have tried wax paper instead of the rosin paper on the windows? I imagine that it would be great coverage, and peel right off with the painters tape. Looks great!
YoungHouseLove says
Some others recommended contact paper, or press n seal, so I wonder if wax paper would work. Thanks for the suggestion Lauren!
xo
s
Shan says
I too saw the episode of Rehab Addict where Nicole Curtis used a product she painted on window glass before spraying the windows. It dried clear, and after she painted the windows, she was able to peel it off easy peasy. She said it was much easier for her to paint it on instead of taping off when doing older windows with many panes. She even used it when spraying the outside of a house. It made her job go by fast! I swore she painted it on by hand, which makes me think it was Jasco Mask… but Ive heard that Wagner Glass Mask works as well.
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Shan!
xo
s
Meghan says
Awesome job! I have a Critter sprayer that I have used for painting and poly’ing furniture pieces successfully. I planned to use it on trim pieces before they have been hung but now I am inspired to go get at even the fixed pieces.
Thanks!
Emily says
I love that I am not the only one waiting to hear about he concrete counters! We are doing a phase 1 kitchen renovation this summer and were considering concrete! Would love to hear how it works out!
Bridget says
Looks good! Your hardwood looks a lot brighter with the white trim.
I don’t know if this has already been mentioned but perhaps the rosin paper stuck to the windows because of moisture/condensation overnight. Maybe try wax paper or something like that when you tackle the dining room.
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Bridget!
xo
s
Angelique says
Maybe it would be quicker to just block off the whole window for spraying and do the mullions by hand. Less cutting, maybe a little less scraping.
YoungHouseLove says
That’s definitely possible!
xo
s
Jill says
I hand painted both sides of six French doors in our house a few months ago. Each door having 15 panes makes 180 painful panes. I taped some and put petroleum jelly on others. It was pure hell. Then when I removed the painter’s tape some of the paint came off. I still had to scrape (with a razor blade) and have not been able to bring myself to touch up the areas where the paint came off. I still have nightmares.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh man, that’s awful Jill!
xo
s
Mary says
Just a little (er…a lot of) paint has already transformed your future office. I can’t wait to see the room once it’s all put together.
I have the same Grace True Coat sprayer and I had it fail on me twice! I’ve used it for both small (painting interior doors), and large (spraying an exposed basement ceiling), and it was just okay. But still better than painting with a brush. I got lots of drips and spits..and then..eventually it would fail. I finally upgraded to the Graco LTS15 (thank goodness Lowe’s let me return the TrueCoat sprayer both times) and we painted all of our ceilings in our new house a few weeks back. I have to tell you how awesome this sprayer is! The spraying pattern is much smoother and I have yet to witness any spits or drips (unless I got a little too close). Here’s my little post about it: http://www.thelovelyroost.com/2014/03/i-hate-painting-ceilings.html
Good luck with the office :)
YoungHouseLove says
That’s so nice to hear Mary! Thanks for the tip!
xo
s
Carol D says
Ok…this question is a little off subject, but what is a good rule on choosing paint for the ceiling? Same color as the walls? or lighter??
YoungHouseLove says
We usually do either flat white paint or a soft accent color (we did light blue on the lofted ceiling in the sunroom, and a soft pink on the ceiling in Clara’s room), or a half-tone of the wall color (ex: if you have tan walls, a 50% lighter version of that color can be nice on the ceiling).
xo
s
shelly says
YAY! Congratulations! I think something super fun should be done to celebrate completing the final blue trimmed room! You guys, and Clara’s patience, deserve it!
Lara says
Great job, you guys! We have spent the last 9 months of our lives renovating a 1928 bungalow. So I can sympathize big time with the painting of the windows. Did y’all have to sand the trim at all? That was the worst part of our experience, the sanding and scraping of layers and layers of old paint to make sure that the new paint didn’t fleck right off. Maybe yours just had one layer of blue paint?
YoungHouseLove says
Thankfully our trim is dull/chalky so we didn’t have anything glossy or sealed to deal with – if it was slick we would have sanded and deglossed though – just to help get a better hold.
xo
s
Nancy says
You did a great job. Have you considered instead taping off the whole window and painting the wood in the panels by hand? My father was a painter by trade and he always sprays as it gives a smooth finish. It does take a lot of prep work yes but it’s a lot quicker.
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Nancy! Great tip!
xo
s
may31 says
is there a reason you couldn’t just remove the mullions? i have never seen a house built after the 70s with separate panes of glass. are yours separate? thanks!
YoungHouseLove says
Wish we could have! Ours are actually separate panes and the grilles are solid wood pieces that sadly don’t snap out.
xo
s
Wendy says
My hubby owns a painting business and has learned A LOT of painting tricks through trial and error! He also reads this blog over my shoulder and loves DIY house projects. I showed him this post and he wondered what size tip you were using in your sprayer? Most likely the sprayer came with a tip size of 515 (it is printed on the side of the tip). The first 5 means it has a 10″ fan (double the number). The 15 means it the size of the hole the paint goes through is .015. That is a tip size that you would use for a project like exterior painting, or interior walls. He recommends using a 310 tip for your trim. The green tips that you buy are called “fine finish tips” and they are designed for painting trim. If Home Depot doesn’t carry these, you may have better luck at a paint store like Sherwin Williams. He also recommends (as previous posters have mentioned) changing out the tip frequently, as the hole can expand with use and cause problems like dripping/running paint. When spraying trim, if you’re using the correct tip size, you should be able to make several quick passes over an area with each coat without the paint dripping. He posts painting tips on their facebook quite a bit and I’m sure he’d love to answer any questions you or anyone else has about DIY painting projects! http://www.facebook.com/sprayncoat or at sprayncoat.com
YoungHouseLove says
We are using the basic tip it came with, but some people have recommended needing a new one, and I love the idea of something smaller to make it more of a focused spray. Thanks for the tips Wendy!
xo
s
Kim says
Just wondering why the picture looks funny on my screen? Are the baseboards not even?
Looks great though! That’s an awful lot of blue.
YoungHouseLove says
A few of the photos are panoramic from an iPhone, so you hold the phone and scan around the room to try to get a super long picture, but it looks a little wiggle due to human error ;)
xo
s
Jeanie says
Greatly admire your work and fearlessness in diving in the painting deep end of the pool. I’ve learned from 46 years painting my home interiors that you should love painting to do it. Few things bring such immediate gratification as seeing the difference it makes!
Lessons learned in 46 years painting:
1. If you love seeing magic happen, you’ll love it forever. You guys did a great job& are being too hard on yourselves.
2. Accept the fact that products don’t do their jobs sometimes just like people in life. It happens.
3. A lot of painting difficulties can change a doable challenge into a huge challenge, it’s just how life works friends. Breathe in & out 5 times.
4. When things are difficult, tiring, too unexpected, take breaks, sing, dance, go for walk, have glass of anything you love.
5. Hard as things might seem, try to enjoy the process, be in moment and see yourself and project in well finished light of success. Do the Rocky dance. Celebrate and have fun. Life’s too short anyway.
I just commented other day on how much I’ve loved reading blog and feel the parental like pride in your fabulous rise in fame. I’m proud of you and admire your fun loving spirits and tenacity. An admirable, adorable family of 4 3/4 !
Thanks a mil. Keep up the good work& enjoy or learn something valuable from everything in life.
The End is never the end so enjoy it all!
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Jeanie! You’re so sweet!
xo
s
Dusty @All Things G&D says
Oh WOW – the “after” (so far) pic of this room is incredible! Great job, guys!! What a relief it must be to have that checked off the ol’ to-do list.
samantha sue says
We also bought one of those grayco paint sprayers. hated it! (remember in living color?) anyway,we found that a plain old $25 cup gun was SOOO much better! AND i didn’t even throw a fit to replace it when my boyfriend forgot to clean the gun out after spraying the kitchen
YoungHouseLove says
That’s good to know!
xo
s
Andrea says
The white trim makes such a great difference! One question, though. Since the semi-gloss trim paint is now on the walls a little bit, will that sheen show through when you paint the walls with a matte paint?
YoungHouseLove says
We haven’t had any issues with that when we painted all the rooms upstairs (they had all been sprayed) – even with paint on the walls where we sprayed doors – so we don’t think the sheen shows through, at least with good quality paint (Ben Moore) and two coats.
xo
s
Roxane G. says
Try Swiss Coffee by BM. Great ‘not-white- white’ with depth!
YoungHouseLove says
Sounds really pretty!
xo
s
Hope says
I’m like 90% sure I just missed it! but did you guys do the same technique for taping the windows as the floors? Frog tape, then paper overtop, sealed again with frog tape? I’m just curious as to how the paint got behind the paper at all since frog tape rocks my socks. Also, in one of our old houses, the fake panes could per taken off (though there’s always a risk of breakage there, I’m sure) for painting etc. are your panes real? Or are they permanently adhered to the glass?
Just wondering. I’d be SOOO bummed to find all of that leakage!
YoungHouseLove says
We just did the top and bottom of the squares with tape, so we didn’t do it all the way around the paper, so that’s why it bled we think! We’ll have to see if sealing it with tape (or taping off first and then putting paper over it) can work since others have recommended that. Can’t wait to give a few methods a try when we get to the blue-trimmed dining room!
xo
s
shyla says
just heard of a great product from associated paint called “masking liquid H20” perfect for trim. you paint it on, let it dry, then paint all of your window trim and then you can peel the masking liquid right off. it greatly reduces the time needed to paint window trim! amazing!
check it out here
http://www.worldpaintsupply.com/associated-paint-80-400-4-qt-clear-masking-liquid-h2o/
shyla says
a quick video to demonstrate
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Shyla!
xo
s
Lacey Saggio says
Ok I was looking for this post! I don’t know if anyone has said this, but I wanted to share my bright idea on the spraying of windows problem. I have been uber successful using Glad Press & Seal to cover mirrors and glass before spray painting. I press into the edges, smooth and cut away the excess with a sharp knife (exacto or sometimes my husband’s buck knife. It has left the only the tinest of spots to scrape away in the end! I know that would be a little painstaking with all those window panes, but might be totally worth it if you ever spray trim again! So, that’s my two cents :)
Sarah says
When we sprayed the windows in our living room my mother in law suggested first coating the window panes with a thin coat of vaseline. Then the paint overspray wont stick & can just be wiped off.Then of course you clean your windows with windex to get rid of the vaseline. We decided not to do it & just scraped because I was worried it may leave a fog on the window & I wasnt up to windexing them all to get any greasy film off. But maybe you could try it on 1 pane & see if it works.
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Sarah!
xo
s
Val says
I say hire it out. At this point, you’ve earned it. You’ve established that both ways suck. You’ve established that you are perfectly capable of both and not-at-all interested in either. Only one room left at this point (with built-ins!! eesh!!). It can be your reward for all the trim painting and wall-paper pulling.
(The fact that I think this way is probably why your budget is in much better shape than mine. :))
Bailey says
It’s amazing how much larger and brighter the room looks with the trim painted white! I can’t wait to see how it looks once the walls are painted!
Andrea says
I’d say you did the exact right thing. All that blue makes me want to cry, thinking of the time and effort it would take to paint it by hand. It looks so clean and new now!
Feddie says
My friend told me about this post because she knows I do a lot of painting. I just thought I’d give my thoughts. I painted all the trim in the house I built with a sprayer before I installed it.
Early on I went through a few of those inexpensive sprayers with sad results. There’s three keys to successfully spray painting with latex paint. 1) A quality HVLP sprayer. Yes, this means expensive. There’s no way around it. It’s an investment but you will find that you can’t wait to use it over and over again. I use a Fuji Mini Mite 4. Here’s a couple of videos reviewing this sprayer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB48XTSa-QQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2W6r5wIMGU
2) The proper needle. A quality sprayer will give you ability to change the needles for various applications from shooting stain to latex.
3) Proper thinning of the paint. You cut latex with water and I like to use a product called Floetrol. Water thins the paint so it won’t clog. Floetrol has some thinning effects but more importantly it slows the dry time so the paint gets a chance to “settle down” before it dries. Here’s a video of thinning the paint:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51cRM-iPw3E
Sorry if it seems like I am doing a commercial for my YouTube Channel, that’s not my intent, but I have some experience on the topic and I thought I’d share it here. Good luck!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks for the tips!
xo
s
Penny Smith says
After watching Nichole (is that her name) from HGTV “THe Rehab Addict” apply a liquid “tape” covering to the windows ref ore painting and it comes RIGHT off, maybe you can use figure out what theta is before you do something like that is? Sorry I don’t know what it is called. But it’s SLICK!
nt says
It might be a good idea to invest in a real with replaceable cartridges (3m or Honeywell brands have worked for me). They’re not that expensive and it’ll keep your lungs from being coated with latex and varnish.I did 7 gallons of latex on a basement earlier this spring and was terrified when I realized how much paint accumulates on the filter cartridges as you breathe through them.
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks NT!
xo
s