Paint | Operation Home

Sometimes my Type A personality is a tough thing to get past. I’m a detail person. Details must mesh with one another, especially when it has to do with a project that I’ve worked on myself. And when a project feels half-done (or like it doesn’t flow) I can’t think of much else besides fixing it until it’s actually complete. Which explains why our master bath has been a huge mental pain in my arse for the past 5 months. My Type-A-Ness has been hitting the crazy-meter. And no, it’s not because it’s ugly. That’s a fact that I accepted when we bought the house. It’s a detail thing. A paint detail thing to be exact.

Just in case you haven’t seen our master bathroom, allow me to introduce you (prepareyourself)…

This room is decked out with navy blue and purple cultured marble (with swirls of mauve… we must not forget the mauve), 80’s floor tile with stained grout, peach walls, and what I like to refer to as our “coffin-shower”. I mean, just tell me that doesn’t look like I’m buried alive…

Not to mention the cramped, poorly thought-out layout with zero natural light. It’s quite the gem, really.

Honestly, nothing short of a full gut is going to save this room. We know this. So, the only things that I could think to do to freshen it up as we save for a complete renovation was to give it a good scrubbing and paint those awful peach walls.

And my color of choice was white. It was really the only option. I refused to give that terrible marble the satisfaction of trying to match it in any way.

My goal was to match the trim paint but use an eggshell finish (as opposed to the semi-gloss that was on the trim). Since we didn’t have any trim paint on hand, I basically just held up a bunch of color swatches to the trim and ended up with Behr Ultra Pure White 1750, which according to the swatch I had was a nice true white. Not too bright and blue, not too yellow. Just nice. Or so I thought.

Now, here’s where things got a little hairy. As I just mentioned, the color I was going for was a soft creamy white. But the color I was painting appeared to be brighter… more blue. I figured that it just needed to dry, so I gave it a chance. But after spending all day painting (it took three coats… yeah, not super impressed with Behr’s coverage in this case), I stepped back and realized that the paint was definitely more blue. And that blueness was making our trim appear yellow in comparison. Ugh. Not good. And then I held up my color swatch…. Yup. Wrong.Friggin.Color. You’d think I was crazy if I showed you the photo I took to demonstrate this. It just didn’t capture the difference as it was in person.

Now, did the paint color look completely terrible? Not completely. Did it look better than the peach? Most definitely. Some may be able to look past it, but I’m an undertone person. Colors either need to intentionally contrast or match exactly. The almost-matches-but-not-really thing is NOT cool with me.

So, I purchased new paint, this time emphasizing that the color needed to match the swatch exactly.

And time passed.

And nothing happened.

*coughcough* I probably should mention that the painting of the bathroom happened in OCTOBER. I even alluded to it in this post back when I painted our bedroom. I just didn’t want to post about the master bath until I got it repainted again.

But then, the repainting didn’t happen. And it kept not happening. For a long time. And then I realized something….

NOTHING will make this room look good shy of a full gut. (pause. rinse. and repeat) Nothing.will.make.this.room.look.good.shy.of.a.full.gut.

I mean, I know this. I’ve KNOWN this… So, after this statement bounced around my head for, like, 5 months I finally had a break-through: If nothing will make this space look good, then why am I stressing over a slightly different shade of white??? Lame, Christina. Totally lame. I guess sometimes it just takes time to realize that you need to step back and look at the big picture, ya know?? And I finally did. I weighed the amount of time and energy I’d spend repainting this hole (and mind you, it’s not a fun hole to paint thanks to all those ridiculous nooks and crannies. (Heehee! Gross.)) versus the reward (slightly different white paint), and I just.said.NO. Now, don’t get me wrong… If this were the final space, I’d totally do it. But really, this bathroom is gonna be ugly no matter what color white it is. So, we’re gonna rock it as is for a while.

Here’s how it looks now…

Remember how I discussed the difference light bulbs can make on a paint color? The above picture is a prime example of how a light bulb can make a space seem yellow. That’s a quick switch that I’ll probably make at some point.

You can also see in the pic below that the coffin-shape of the black-shower-of-doom is replicated in our toilet area (…you can even see the shower in the mirror’s reflection! Nice touch, right? Haha!) …

I’m just imagining someone in the 1970’s wearing bell-bottoms and a a large-collared shirt, planning this bathroom, and thinking how clever and groovy it was to carry the coffin-shape throughout the space. Heehee! And ya know what?? I just realized that our bathtub (which is oddly vortex-like)…

Is reminiscent of something else…

Remember that wallpaper that we found behind our wet-bar mirror?? And instead of peach walls (like in the bathroom), they had peach countertops! Way to tie it all together. This house must’ve been the place to boogie in its heyday. 😉

So, anyways, that’s the master bathroom. I have a hard time seeing us doing anything else to it until it’s renovation time (aside from a bit of accessorizing and some hardcore grout-cleaning). The awkward layout and the fact that both the shower and bath tub plumbing fixtures are set on the weird partition walls rather than exterior walls…

And the fact that the step that leads to the bathtub (??) was tiled around and grouted in (as seen three pics up), mean that only major changes will make a difference in this room. If the plumbing was placed differently, we could at least take down some of the partition walls to open up the space. But we can’t. So, we wait. I’m excited to someday take a sledge hammer to this joint (given that I can actually LIFT said sledge hammer… I might just kick the walls a lot instead. Heehee!). 🙂

In the meantime, I’m (well WE’RE — Joey’s hatred of this bathroom is as vast as my own) daydreaming of adding a solar tube for natural light, a HUGE glass-enclosed shower with gorgeous tile, maybe a clawfoot tub, and completely reconfiguring the space so that it makes more sense. It’s actually a pretty large bathroom… The space is just used so inefficiently (and the tub is so massive) that it seems small. This project will literally be a gut down to the studs once we’re able to do it. And we wanna do it right, so it may take a bit of time to save enough, but we’ll get ‘er done eventually.

So, tell me… what’s your favorite part of the space? The coffin-shower? The vortex tub? Any design ideas or suggestions? Anybody been through a full gut of this magnitude? Any tips or tricks?

White paint for everyone!

All the things will be painted white!

All.The.Things.

At least that’s how it seems lately, anyways. And I’m not complaining. This lightly-shaded mayhem began with the transformation of our dining table, and now our built-ins have gotten the blanco treatment. And there’s more to come. Just you wait. 😀

White is one of those lovely shades (remember in school when they referred to white and black as shades, rather than colors?? This has never left me. I remember the weirdest things.) Anyhoo, regardless of the verbage, white is classic, clean, and still leaves plenty of room for character to seep through while modernizing the item in question. And that was exactly my goal with the built-ins. Maintain character while modernizing and brightening the space.

As a refresher, when we purchased our home, the built-ins looked like this…

They were stained a 1970’s wood tone… and don’t even get me started on those nose-cabinets. Not only this, the finish was a thick, high-gloss shellac that was drippy and uneven….

The instant we saw these built-ins during our initial showing, I knew they needed to be white. They were SCREAMING for it. And so was the fireplace. After all, he was the showstopper of the space. The built-ins were basically zapping him of energy, what with them matching almost perfectly. The fireplace deserved to be the star-attraction and painting the built-ins white would allow him to fulfill his destiny.

So, after more than a few pep-talks (3monthsworth) to motivate myself, I got going. I’ll admit, I was sort of dreading the process. The finish used on the built-ins was super glossy and clearly oil-based. This meant that they would require mucho prep work to ensure an even, long-lasting finish.

I started by removing all the doors and labeling them both on the door behind the hinge (because I knew I wouldn’t need to paint over it)…

I also labeled the brown paper used to protect our floors under each corresponding cabinet….

Then, I sanded.

My goal was to rough up the surface so that my primer would adhere well. I used my orbital sander with 220 grit sandpaper and hand sanded the crevices. I sanded the doors and shelves outside to help minimize the dust indoors….

To be on the safe side, I also wiped down the entire piece with some liquid deglosser (as shown in this old pic)….

I simply wiped off all the dust with a few Swiffer rags first, then applied a nice, generous coat of deglosser (I just wiped it on with a lint-free rag). Once it was dry, I carefully cleaned everything off with some tack cloth to remove any residual dust and dirt.

Next, came my favorite primer…

Zinsser shellac primer. It sticks to anything, prevents bleed-through like a champ, and you can topcoat it with anything. Plus, it dries fast and can be topcoated within 45 minutes. Ever since this experience, I’ve used this primer on any project that I’ve ever painted white and have yet to be disappointed.

Once the primer was dry, I topcoated it with this paint in Extra White Semi-gloss….

Now, I’ll admit, I wasn’t so kind to this paint in this post when I first tried it, but it’s grown on me. It really is very good paint that leaves a relatively smooth finish. Plus, this one gallon has lasted me through many a project. I ended up doing 3-4 thin and even coats with a foam roller to get everything perfectly uniform (3 on the doors, 4 on the unit). I used a 2 1/2 inch angled brush for the crevices and to edge the units. My favorite is the Wooster brush… it just covers so well and with great accuracy.

Once all was said and done, I let everything cure for 5 days before putting it all back together. I usually wait at least a week to be sure, but my impatience got to me this time (baddiyer!).

So you don’t have to scroll back up, here’s the before again…

And here she is now…

This view from the dining space is now SO much brighter…

Being that it started out here..

And this view of the living room is less brown now as well…

What’s funny is, I’d totally planned on filling in the middle hardware holes and drilling new ones at more traditional placements, but once I found the streamline knobs from Anthropologie and tried them out, I decided to keep the holes as is.

Both Joey and I were sold. They just looked so cool in the middle of the door. Sleek. Different. Color me shocked by this revelation.

Seriously, though. Aren’t they snazzy? And I have to admit… I feel pretty swanky now that I own something from Anthropologie. Heehee! Are you impressed by my trendiness?? 😉 The knobs were a bit pricier than I’m used to at $6 a pop, but they MAKE the piece. In my eyes it was totally worth the splurge. Plus, this makeover was pretty cheap overall since I already had the paint and primer. And I decided to reuse the original hinges since they meshed with the new knobs (which was another money-saver).

I just love how the units now contrast with the fireplace, making both elements pop in their own way…

As for styling, I tried to keep it simple to prevent the unit from becoming too busy. I used mainly neutral colors with a few pops to tie everything in to the surrounding rooms…

I couldn’t be happier about how these built-ins turned out. They’re light, bright, but still have some of that 1970’s charm. And now they royally put our wet-bar to shame…

Being that this guy is on the opposite wall in the same room, he’ll be painted next to match. And I have a fun idea to try with the counter top as well. Things are happening, guys. Things are happening… 😉

And now I’m signing off… Until next time! 🙂