Master Bed/Bath Repaint

Our house was built in 1990.

I feel like that statement says so much more than it needs to:
- Popcorn ceilings: check (now removed!)
- Shiny brass fixtures: check (replacing/refinishing with satin nickel)
- Golden oak trim and cabinets: check (I can't bring myself to paint good wood. I just can't! So we will refresh and protect it.)
- Wallpaper borders: check (in process of removing)
- Sponge painted walls: check (this is what we are fixing now!)

Ah yes, the sponge painted wall. Ever so revolutionary and trendy in the 1990's.
Thankfully, our house only had a few (glaring) accent walls with sponge texture in the master bedroom and bathroom.

The bathroom originally had the sponged walls AND wallpaper border on top of that, (see right) oh baby!

These sponged walls are something special... I think there are 4 different colors of paint, one of which is a metallic-silver. At least I think it was supposed to be metallic. Instead it just makes the walls look kind of dirty. Ick.






Here's what we did to prepare:
- I removed the wallpaper border with the same method I used to remove the textured wallpaper.
- I finally installed a new (up-to-code) light fixture. (When we first moved in, the inspector informed us that the track-lighting above the tub was an electrocution hazard!)
- I removed all the towel bars. I'm leaning toward replacing these with hooks instead.
- I patched all the holes and dents I could find, but it is really tough to see them on the sponged walls.
- Dear Husband (DH) did a great job sanding all those textured walls down. Whew, what a job!
- Then we washed the walls (TSP is your friend.)
- Finished up patching
- One final wipe-down of all the walls, baseboards and vacuuming the floors. (No dust in our paint!)

Just remember... the preparation is 80% of a painting job.

I don't know how we got so lucky, but Mom volunteered to come up and help paint She is an expert with a paint roller.
I had gotten nearly all the paint and material ahead of time, so we were able to paint both the bedroom and bathroom over the weekend. I picked two different colors for the walls which doubles the drying and clean-up time. Fortunately, I thought ahead and bought disposable paint tray liners, which cut clean-up significantly.

Quality paint and tools are one of the most important things when painting. Here are some favorites of mine:
- Purdy brand paint brushes and rollers. Completely worth the expense!
- Disposable paint tray liners. Yes, they do add to the landfill, but they save so much water that you would use to clean the tray itself.
- The 5-in-1 tool. I am actually pretty new to this tool, but it is so handy! It was the only thing that could pry the paint roller off the handle.

The main wall color we painted was a beautiful warm gray (Repose Gray by Sherwin Williams). This color strip is what I decided would be the foundation colors for our house.  You can see the gray on the right wall in the pictures below.

(Don't mind my fashionable paint clothes.)





The accent wall color (DH) picked out was Leisure Blue by Sherwin Williams. It is tough to get an accurate picture of the color, but the one below is actually pretty close. I think it is a rich soothing blue.

Believe it or not, this is the same color, but because of different lighting, it looks a bit brighter than it actually is.

What a job! Painting was the first step in redecorating our bedroom, and there is a lot more to come. One wall didn't get painted yet because we are replacing the light fixtures above the bathroom sinks. But that is a topic for the next post.