With the day off work today, I headed over to the house with the intention of getting started on the preparations for painting. The plan is to get the master bedroom and ensuite painted so I can move in and then finish the rest of the house soon after.
I've done a bit of reading online and gotten advice from Dad. Here's how I see it:
1. Patch up dents in walls and sand down rough surfaces.
I bought Selley's Spakfilla Rapid from Bunnings. It is a lightweight filler (so light that I was suspicious there was anything inside the container at all!) that dries quickly - hence the 'rapid'. Using a metal spatula, I patched up as many little dents as I could find in the walls and left them to dry overnight. I later sanded the patch-ups.
2. Apply base undercoat sealer.
This is often called a 'primer' and is basically a coat of undercoat paint that helps seal the plaster walls so that when you apply the paint, the porous plaster will not absorb all the paint.
I purchased Berger Gold Label Oil Based Undercoat from a local paint supply store that my new neighbours recommended to me. They sell seconds stock of paints, which are just paint cans that have dents in them and can't be sold in stores such as Bunnings at full price.
Contact me if you want their details!
Why Berger? It turns out that Berger are manufactured by Dulux, so they are basically the same product.
Why oil based? Because I am going to use acrylic paints so I need an oil based primer.
3. Apply paint.
This is where it gets really frustrating trying to pick out the colours for the walls. There are several factors that will influence what colour I select.
Firstly, what colour scheme do I want? I know I want neutral, earthy colours for the living area of the house. This means the browns, beiges, creamy colours.
Secondly, you need to consider how the light falls in the room because it can change the look of the wall colours and the overall feel of the room depending on if you get alot of light or little light.
Thirdly, is it going to be a colour that I can coordinate with my furnishings? This was my largest concern for the feature wall colour that I chose for the master bedroom. Everyone knows that purple is my favourite colour, but whether that will make a good colour choice really depends on how I plan to furnish the room. Ultimately, I want my room to be an expression of who I am and also a sanctuary for me to look forward to retreating to at the end of the day. I need to feel comfortable with the colour.
First thing's first. I covered the mirror in the ensuite with newspaper and taped a plastic drop sheet ($1.50 from Bunnings) over the sink and countertop.
Ready for priming!
I opened up the 10L tin of primer and looked dubiously at the murky, oily brown liquid inside. Fortunately, I had spent the extra $10 to buy a 'paint masher' from Bunnings and I used this to start mixing up the primer. The instructions are to simply plunge the masher up and down in the paint without lifting the masher entirely out of the liquid to avoid introducing air bubbles.
I started plunging up and down. Bits of white were swirling into the brown oil and I kept at it...all the while wondering if I was doing this correctly or if this was to be expected since I have never mixed primer before. I thought it was just going to require a bit of mixing up to lift the sediment from the bottom. I started wondering whether it had been a good decision to purchase 'seconds' stock as for all I knew, this tin could be spoilt. For all I knew, I could be pointlessly stirring up a can of primer gone bad!
After about fifteen minutes of plunging, the paint was getting lighter and circles of white were bubbling up to the top, then all at once, the paint took on a whiteness and I couldn't help but squeal in delight.
I have mixed the primer!
Let's get started.
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