Monday, February 1, 2016

Repainting: Master Bathroom

There are many things I love about my new house, but the interior paint job is not one of them. The builder used flat paint throughout the house. If flat paint works for you in high traffic areas, bless you. In my experience, it's a disaster. (Cannot even imagine the horror of living in a flat paint house with kids.) Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that the painter either diluted the paint or failed to prime. The builder and I had it out about this during the warranty period, but I settled for a free drainage system in my backyard knowing that I was capable of painting the interior (installing drainage is beyond me).

In January, I started the process with a trip to Lowe's to pick up supplies. The paint department manager rolled her eyes when I told her my builder had used flat paint in the bathroom. (Solidarity!) She matched the builder's custom Valspar color--a trendy light grey.  I bought a gallon of paint, FrogTape (it's as good as advertised!) and some accessories that I'd need to paint.

I went with the higher end paint, not what's pictured above.
Taping, painting and cleanup was a lot of work, mostly due to the high ceilings and the bathroom hardware, but I really enjoyed the project.  I felt a huge sense of accomplishment when I pulled down the tape and wiped down the counters. The crap paint job I started with had been bothering me for months. Each little water stain from a guest reaching for a towel after washing hands... oh, it was like death by a thousand paper cuts! Now the bathroom paint job is everything it should have been from the very beginning and it just fills me with joy to know that problem has been fixed (in that room at least) relatively inexpensively.

Painting the master bathroom used about 1/2 gallon of paint. I've still got 1.5 bathrooms to go and hope to be finished this month. Then I'll progress through the house, room by room, until the whole place is done (or until I break down and hire a painter).

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