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Painting the Baby’s Room

Matt | February 25, 2007 | Family, Home | 1279 words and 2,122 views | 1 comment

I know hate is a strong word, but I hate painting. I guess it’s the perfectionist in me that causes me to find every little white spot and want to make sure it’s covered with paint and perfectly blended into the area next to it. However, it was time to paint the Baby’s Room because Colleen was tired of the white walls.

Well, this just wasn’t any painting project…oh no. This will kick it up a notch and involve two-tones, split 38″ up the wall where we would then run a chair rail (which we would have to custom make) and then top it off with wallpaper border. Oh my.

Here are a couple before pictures with us deciding what what colors to use in the last one. We eventually chose colors close to Winnie the Pooh colors, a light blue on top for the sky and a light green on bottom for grass. Next step was using blue tape to center the divide line where we would then put the chair rail.

After the first coat of paint here is where we were at.

Now it’s time to install the chair rail which we got at Home Depot. It’s amazing how expensive wood can be. At least we found out how to do the finishing nails so that when you finish you don’t see them. Also, at least our chair rail was primed.

Basically what you do is nail the chair rail to the studs (helps if you have a working studfinder) using 2″ 6d finishing nails. Then, using a nail set, sink the nails at an angle into the chair rail, cover it with putty (Colleen was a whiz with the putty), let it dry, sandpaper the putty down to match the surroundings, then paint over it. Then, it was a matter of installing the wallpaper.

Okay, I know I said before I disliked painting, well now I utterly DESPISED hanging wallpaper. It would be one thing if you have a smooth wall to install it on, but with our eggshell textured walls air bubbles are everywhere. It took us over 2.5 hours to install a simple 6-inch border wallpaper which was pre-pasted. We bought some wallpaper paste for pre-pasted wallpaper (I know, it doesn’t make sense, but that’s what you do), rolled it on, then we leveled it, and smoothed out the air bubbles. Colleen and I both threatened to rip down the whole thing many times during the process. Good thing I picked up a touch-up tube with some stronger stuff because sometimes the corners wouldn’t stick and we needed real paste to glue it down.

My crowning achievement was getting the chair rail around the rounded corners and the edges matching up. Colleen did a nice job of cutting the wallpaper behind the wallplate.