By now, you have realized that I’m a pretty crafty/creative person. I like to create, to make, to improve. And one of the first things I did, when moving into this house, was get rid of the maroon/purplish walls that was in my living/dining room. I then quickly redid the girly bedroom… hey, I only have boys. That bedroom turned into a guest bedroom/craft room, and I plan to do a tutorial on that too, but, since my oldest son is in need of a bedroom upgrade, I’m starting with his room.
Back over Christmas I moved my toddler out of the crib, transferred him into a big boy bed on a bottom bunk, move my middle son to the top bunk, and then moved my oldest son into what was the nursery. Thus, he now gets his own room. With that, came a need for a bed, and that was the obvious priority. So I built him one. (You can find that three-part tutorial starting here: A New Bed for My Son, Part 1)
We moved in an Ikea table for Lego’s and then left it at that. The paint job wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. They had put this cool design on 2 of the walls.
But, the paint didn’t say BOY (especially since a girl had previously occupied the room before we bought the house.) I’ve been wanting to paint it for awhile, but hadn’t quite decided when to do it. So, a couple weeks ago my husband was going out of town for the week, and I knew it was a great time to do it. I could have him temporarily sleep with me, while I painted his bedroom.
Then, as I was prepping his bedroom, I decided to go ahead and paint the other bedroom that boys sleep in, so it became a two-for-one painting extravaganza. I did them both the same, so it was to just do.
Prep Work
In any kind of painting, there is a little bit of work that needs to be done first. First, move everything away from the walls, vacuum and wipe down any floor boards or crown molding. Take down any shelves that are on the wall, take the curtains and hardware fill in the holes with spackling, and then remove the fixture plates.
In the bedroom where two of my boys sleep, it had this silver trim on it. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but it took off some of my wall with it, and that irritated me.
Any ideas of what it is???
The other thing you can do is tape along floor boards and crown molding, and around doors and windows. This is to your preference, my tape wasn’t staying, so ended up not doing it. Oh, and put plastic down, you’ll wish you had if you hadn’t. Any drips land on the plastic and not your (white) carpet.
Select Paint Colors
I had an idea in my head: I had purchased aclearance gallon of paint from Lowe’s (Lyndhurst Timber by Valspar) awhile back and wanted to use that on the bottom. Then I picked out a blue paint, not too dark, but not too light from a paint chip I got from Home Depot. The blue had to match both rooms blankets from the bed. I picked an Enchanting by Behr, which was darker than I wanted, but found that that particular they didn’t have the paint chips for anymore. So I used their cool scanner and it came back with Crystal Waters by Behr as a lighter version of the one I wanted. So I got that in a paint and primer.
The other thing I decided, last minute, was that I wanted to put a stripe between these two colors in an off-white-ish color. I had a paint sample of Popcorn Ceiling by Behr Ultra that worked perfectly.
Get Painting
I hope you can now imagine this coming together…
First thing I did, with my 5 year old assistant, was I went around and marked 4 feet from the crown molding. It was just a little mark every 3 or 4 feet across. I then took my Popcorn Ceiling and a foam brush and painted under that 4 foot mark for abut 2 inches. I didn’t make it exact, some places went more than 2 inches, some dipped below that 4 foot mark, but I put a horizontal line of the paint all the way around the room.
Here’s the two different rooms and how it looked:
At this point I knew I needed to let this stripe dry for about a day before I used tape on it, (the Frog tape I used recommended 24 hours) so I went ahead and rolled the top part of the wall blue, but stayed away from the horizontal stripe. I also didn’t go back and do the edges at this time.
This is from oldest son room. There’s not much different in the blues, but the original one was more purple-y.
I then went back through, and without my 5 year old’s help, marked another 4 foot line from the crown molding and taped right over the top of this Popcorn Ceiling horizontal line that I painted the day before. Let me show you, I think that should be easier for you to understand.
See?
The top of the yellow tape was along the 4 foot markings and it goes right over this line.
Tip: When taping over fresh paint, use painting tape that is for delicate surfaces or fresh paint. The tape I used was the Frog tape in delicate surfaces. And then I had to go back and buy another roll and I ended up with Scotch brand (green colored). Both worked great. The reason you want the one for delicate surfaces, is if you get regular painters tape, it won’t stay stuck to the fresh paint.
I then rolled the bottom the Lyndhurst Timber and made sure all the corner and edges were all nice and neat.
Tip: When painting along crown moulding and baseboards, keep a wet wash cloth with you. If you happen to get paint on either of these, wipe it of right away. It will stain the cloth, so use an old or unimportant wash cloth. I’m sure paper towels would have been fine too.
Now, the Frog Tape recommends peeling it off while the paint is fresh, so as soon as I was done with one room and edging of the blue, I pulled it off. I started at the doorway and pulled straight out towards me. Please note, there will be wet paint on this, no reason to get it all over you. Wod (not sure how to spell this) the tape up and put it directly in the trash.
Last, I went back to the blue, and using a paint brush, I did the edges along the crown molding, the corners and the painted along the taped line.
See how pretty that line turned out?
Finishing Touches
When I pulled the tape off in a few places, like the picture below, I noticed I didn’t paint the stripe as high as I should have. So I had to go back with my Popcorn Ceiling painting and very carefully touch up a few spots.
Next, make sure you put all the fixture coverings back on. Put back up your curtains and decide where you want your shelves.
And you are all done.
Here’s another photo of the finished product:
