The White Room Challenge

Have you ever wished that you could prime and paint a room in a single afternoon?  Boy howdy, I have.  When I take a room from blah blah builder’s beige to delicious color, I normally prime the room one day, paint the ceiling a second, paint the walls a third, and then do any touch ups on the forth day.  That’s four days – FOUR DAYS – of living in painty madness…and that’s without doing any of my crazy wall treatments.  I may be slow, but I’m a painting perfectionist.

For my most recent painting project, I decided to try something new.  I normally tape off and cover my trim really well when I paint.  It helps keep spills, drips, and splatters under control.  Instead of stopping there, I went ahead and covered the doors and window with plastic and paper.  And then I tarped the open wall to the lofted room from the ceiling to the floor.  ET Phone Home.

Why did I go through all of that trouble?  Well, I wanted to see if my DIY life would be faster or easier by painting with an airless paint sprayer.  I had purchased an airless paint sprayer a few months ago, but this was going to be our first try at using it in a room (the first use, outdoors on a windy day, was very ill-fated).

When Emma was napping and Zack was playing with his Legos, Tom and I donned hooded coveralls and started spraying.  I stepped out to take a photo of Tom, since I obviously couldn’t take my camera into the kill room (Dexter fans, anyone?).  Everything in there was covered in a fine mist of white primer.

When we were finished priming the ceiling and the walls, I checked the clock.  Twenty minutes.  TWENTY MINUTES!  Woo to the hoo!  I couldn’t believe we got it finished so quickly.  With a brush for cutting in and rollers for the walls and ceiling, it would have taken us a few hours to complete.

When the primer was dry (in about an hour), we went back in and sprayed a coat of ultra bright white paint (Glidden Flat White paint right off the Home Depot shelf, with 1 oz of white tint added for extra oomph).  It went on as quickly as the primer did.  When it was dry, we sprayed a second coat.  We started to paint at 1 pm and it was finished by 7 pm.  YEE HAW!

As I mentioned before, everything inside the room was covered with a thin white mist.  Along with our hooded coveralls, we wore eye protection and respirators.  It would have been bad if our lungs shared this hawt look.

The time we saved in painting the room with an airless sprayer was definitely worth the little bit of extra taping I had to do.  The model I purchased wasn’t cheap ($300), but I know I’m going to use the crap out of it between all of the furniture and rooms that I paint.  I’ll be repainting another room in the next few weeks, and I’ll better document the process so I can put together a good tutorial for you guys.  I think it’s important to really know what’s involved and what you need to consider before you shop for a paint sprayer.

But for now, we have a bright white playroom.  Weird, huh?  If there’s anything that’s outside of my color-obsessed style, it’s plain white walls.

What would make me paint a room so plainly?  Any guesses as to why I’ve accepted the challenge of having white walls?  I’ll be Tweeting and Facebooking some hints over the next few days, so stay tuned!