Squeeky Wheel Gets the Grease

My daughter has been asking (bugging, whining, and complaining) long enough about her bedroom. The carpet is ugly, the paint is horrible, and there are nail holes everywhere. If all I were going to do is paint and remove the carpet, life would be easy. There are enough dings and layers of paint meaning the best option for me is to re-texture before painting. This brings things up to current "style" as well. Sunday morning, everything was removed from the room.

Here's the starting point. I've already removed the closet doors and the shelving. Nail holes were patched.




All the trim was covered up, but I'm leaving the carpet in place (for now) because it's old and crappy. It's also going to protect the hardwood flooring which was covered up a decade or two ago. At this point, I'm just hoping that it's still in good shape. Either way, it'll still be better than the current carpet.




The next big step is to texture the walls. I tried a different mix than I had used previously. Up till now, I've always taken standard drywall compound in gallon buckets and thinned it with water to the consistency I want. This time, I got the powder mix. This should be less expensive overall, and I don't have to worry about using the compound before it dries on me. So far, it's not bad. I think the mix was a little thick, but still workable. Here, you can see the larger "splats" which are still wet on the wall. As it dries, it turns off-white and matches the current paint.




Paint the walls with a brush and roller? No way, a sprayer is the way to go! I used this one a few years back in renovating a condo and love it. In the time it takes to paint the four walls in one bedroom I was able to paint two bedrooms, a hallway, two bathrooms, a living an dining room, and a kitchen. All walls and all ceilings. Seriously, that's not an exaggeration as to how fast it is. For as fast as it is to paint, it is just about as long to clean. For a small room (bathroom), I'd probably just use a roller and brush.




10 minutes and a 1-1/2 gallon of primer later, the room is done and drying. The annoying thing with how fast the sprayer is is how long I have to sit and wait for the paint to dry before doing the next color. I gave it 1/2 hour and sprayed the ceiling white. I'm giving it a few hours before hitting the walls with the color. The sprayer uses a bit more paint than by using a roller, as there is overspray and all the paint in the hose. Either way, for a large room or series of rooms, the extra cost is wort it. I find that I also get a smoother appearance than compared to rolling paint.