This house has the worst paint ever. Not only did they spray every room in the house a not very attractive gold, but they used the crappiest paint known to mankind. If you bump it with your elbow it wipes off on your clothes, if you wipe it with a wet cloth the cloth comes away gold. It totally water-soluble.

The only good thing about this “washable” paint is that the overspray that is all over the white woodwork washes off. It takes an obscene amount of scrubbing and buckets and buckets of water because of the amount of gold paint that comes off, but the paint does wash off.

I am going to be trying a lot of new products.

First room

The first room I painted was the living room and hall. I had great luck with Valspar satin paint in my Texas house so I went back to Lowe’s for the same paint.

But it wasn’t the same paint. It left terrible roller marks and if you tried to go back and smooth them the paint came off the wall. It just wasn’t the same paint. Or maybe it was a function of the crappy paint it was covering. I don’t know, but I wanted a better painting experience with the other rooms I painted.

I checked out reviews and found a lot of folks who experienced the same thing I did, so it left me thinking it wasn’t the paint I was covering, but changes in the Valspar paint. I absolutely loved this paint the last time I used it so I was really disappointed with the results this time.

Consumer Reports

I decided to see what Consumer Reports had to say about interior paints and found their top rated paint to be Clark + Kensington Satin Enamel from Ace Hardware, so I visited the local Ace Hardware this afternoon and bought this paint for the master bath and den. I wanted an evergreen green for the bath and a bone white for the den area. Two totally different colors both going over my crappy gold paint. I will post a follow-up on the results after painting these two rooms in these two diverse colors.

The girl who helped me at Ace (she was an absolute sweetie) told me about some new items I had never heard of. I ended up getting a Teflon coated roller pan that she said she had personally used and loved. You allow the paint dry overnight and then just pull out the skin of dried paint the next morning. I can’t wait to try it.

I also got Teflon rollers that are supposed to be washable. I like the idea of reusing the rollers instead of disposing of them. She also recommended a tool for cleaning them. It has a moon shaped side that will help force the paint out of the water before washing and then the water out of the roller after washing. I plan to use it for cleaning brushes as well.

I will report how all of these things work after using them.

 

 

 

 

 

Last, but not least, I have to try a new primer. When the door to the garage was being replaced there was evidence of black mold at the lower edge when the casing was removed. I pulled off the ugly paneling on the lower part of the wall to find 2 feet of black mold from the concrete up. That drywall has been replaced after I sprayed with 50/50 solution of bleach and water.

So I decided I might as well yank off the rest of the paneling that I hated and all that drywall needed to be repaired since the paneling had been glued as well as nailed.

So I will be trying a new primer on the basement walls, the kitchen soffit where I removed the popcorn (who puts popcorn on kitchen soffiting???), and wall patches I needed to do in the bath. I decided to try Lowe’s Valspar primer that says it’s best for new drywall.

Painting Cabinets

I found a blog that talked about painting cabinets with great results so I’m going to try the products they used. http://www.younghouselove.com/2012/01/how-to-paint-your-cabinets-aka-hallelujah/. Their cabinets turned out beautifully so I’m going to follow their suggestions with the hope my cabinets will turn out looking half as good as theirs.

I went to Benjamin Moore and purchased their Fresh Start® Primer and plan to go back and get their ADVANCE Waterborne Interior Alkyd Paint – Satin Finish for the final coats. The ADVANCE is a little pricey at $44 a gallon, but if it levels out and produces the smooth finish I’ve read about it will be worth it.

Follow Up

Sheesh — that’s a lot of new products. Heck, it’s a lot of money!

I will report back with results after I have used all this stuff. I am going to volunteer at the Campbell County Historical Society tomorrow since there’s a 100% chance of rain and I plan to start painting the next day and keep going until I have the bath painted, the den primed and painted (new sheet rock), and the cabinets in the kitchen primed.

That’s the plan — we’ll see if I stick with it…