Getting Started with Paint

Yesterday,  I decided to get going and start painting the special Owl Mural Study Area that I promised for my children.

The kids picked out a light spring green color that I starting adding to one wall yesterday. A big owl wall decal will go on that wall once the painting is done.

Since I am a messy painter, and because the whole floor area of the room to be painted is covered in wall-to-wall carpeting, I was very careful and made sure I did a lot of prep work before I started painting.

How to Paint Walls

If you are a messy painter (or just want to get the job done right), these steps will help you paint your walls.

• Wear clothes you don’t mind getting paint on – For me, that meant an oversized pair of khaki overalls that I wore while pregnant, an old T-shirt and bare feet! (Unconventional, I know!)
• Dust and clean the walls: There was some dust where the walls met the ceiling in the space I was painting, so I cleaned that off before applying any paint.
• Fix any defects in the walls: There was a crack extending from a bedroom door to the ceiling of the wall I was painting, so I first spackled and sanded the crack before I got to painting.
• Scrape flaking paint /use primer – if your walls have been painted before, you may need this step, but since the wall I am painting was white and didn’t have any flaking paint, I could skip this step.
• Remove any furniture – unless you an extremely neat painter, you will want to remove the furniture in your room before you start painting – unless you want spotted furniture!
• Protect surfaces – be sure to cover the walls and any furniture you can’t move with a drop cloth. Because I am so messy, I covered my space’s wall to wall carpeting with a plastic drop cloth, and a layer of newspaper before painting.
• Remove outlet plates – this is a step I skipped in past painting attempts, with not good results!
• Use painters tape – I placed painters tape on the ceiling where it met the wall being painted, so I won’t end up with green spots of paint on the ceiling. (Because, as I mentioned before, I am a messy painter. I also taped edges of walls that adjoin the wall being painted so I won’t get paint on the walls I don’t want painted.

How to Complete the Room

Now, I am not sure if I should paint more than just that one wall in the study area. The wall is part of a large hallway area on the second floor in my home. While large, the area tends to be dark, since there are no windows, and the one ceiling light doesn’t give a lot of light.

My husband didn’t want me to paint that area at all (and leave the builder’s white), but I did paint that one wall, since it’s what my daughters chose, and because I want to make their study/reading area fun! (And not boring and beige and white, as too much of our home is already beige!)

What’s Your Opinion?

But now, I am not sure what to do. Should I leave the other walls white, or should I paint the rest of the walls, green, too? My other option is to paint the other walls a creamy yellow – we painted our downstairs walls in a creamy yellow (it’s a yellowish beige, really), and painted the stairway wall that leads to the upstairs hallway in that color to keep the color consistent. The yellow and the green might go together well.

What do you think?

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