The New House : Progress... and Painting Prep 101

I'm sorry to have been out of touch for the last couple of days... we've been busy sanding, scraping, spackling, filling and sanding.  Last night we finally got some paint on the walls. 

I documented the process for you so you, too, can have the pleasure of spending hours repairing your woodwork and trim.

It is tedious work.  So much so, that Mike and I did the living room, prepped the dining room... and called a painting company the next day to finish.  Oops.  We really wanted to do it ourselves, but it was just taking us too much time to do it right. 



Before we started most of the woodwork looked like the photo above.  Ick. 

Step 1 : Sponge down all of the woodwork with soap and water.



With the bad comes the good, as do these really pretty glass and brass door knobs.

Back to the woodwork.

Step 2 : Sand the trim.  I sanded all of the spots that had dings and chipping paint.  Then I wiped it clean with damp rag.  

Step 3 : I filled the woodwork that was chipped away with wood filler.

Using a putty knife I filled the spots...

Then used the putty knife to form a new sharp clean edge.  

Step 4 : Patch the walls by filling any holes with spackling. 

We used this spot light to bring out all of the imperfections so we could repair the walls perfectly... or as perfectly as we could.

Step 5 : Sand.  Sand all of the filled walls and trim.  

Step 6 : Finally, paint.  We rolled first, then trimmed. around the edges.

Paint : Benjamin Moore in Manchester Tan
*You can see my design board (including colors and layout) for this room, here.

As I rolled, Mike used caulk to smoothly seal the seams.  We waited for the caulking to dry before I went back and filled in with paint to the trim.

Painted walls!  The house is feeling fresher already.  The color is a really soft warm grey, creamy color... even though this photo was taken at night in bad lighting.  I'll try to get a more accurate photo later this week! 

The paint crew started their part of the house (the rest...) today and should finish tomorrow.  I'll be traveling the next couple of days, but will follow up with a "before" photo tour of the house.

*You can see my design board (including colors and layout) for this room, here.