Colour me Beige

Friday 10th June 2011



To try to make my colour selection for the ensuite, I narrowed down my choices and stood them up against the wall. I stepped back and tried to envision the room with each particular colour. It is going to be such a difficult decision because the colours are so similar, yet oh so different!



I orginally decided to go with Dulux's 'Sago Half' but when I looked at it the next day, I realised it's got a tint of pink in it.

I have settled on 'Beige Royal Quarter'. It's more of a brown hue so it will look much more neutral rather than cream/pink.

Friday 3rd June 2011



The concrete has dried up and I am loving the colour. I chose 'Paperbark'.

Primer Party

Sunday 22nd May 2011

Today I had some friends and family over to help me finish priming the walls. It was a big job but we all got it done rather quickly.

It took two 10L cans of the oil based undercoat sealer.

Several paint brushes.

Several rollers and trays.

And some catering from Mum for lunch.



What do they say?

Many hands make light work.

Thanks for the 'hands' guys!

Featuring: Berry Smoothie

Saturday 14th May 2011
With the walls prepped and primed in the master bedroom, I began applying the paint for my feature walls this afternoon.



I have chosen Dulux's Berry Smoothie.

1L for $15 from the paint supplier.

Yes, I originally wanted to go with a deep, royal purple but I decided that it would make the choices for coordinating the furnishings and other wall colours somewhat limited. With the reddish colour I have chosen, it adds a warmth to the room and I can coordinate it with browns, pinks, purples and whites. Much more room for depth of colour.



My blank canvas.



Right, so first I went around and painted the edges and around the power outlets. I used a rectangular shaped paint edger. I got the knack of using it pretty quickly but I didn't realise that there were little wheels on one side. They are there so that you can roll the edger along the wall and keep it straight and away from the undersides of the cornices or the floor when you're painting along these edges. I also had to adjust how much paint I was loading the edger with because if I had too much, it would drip. Luckily I have the drop sheets in place!

I also had to go around with a brush to fix up the corners and finer detail in the edges and window.



Once all the edges were done, I started rolling on the paint.

I was a bit ambitious in trying to do the walk in robe as well but ran out of paint!



I kept at it even when the sun went down. Thankfully, my dad had installed a lightglobe into the fitting. I will have to return in the next few days to do some touchups but I think the one coat will suffice.

I've got it covered!

Wednesday 11th May 2011



On the weekend I finished priming the walls in the master, ensuite and walk-in-robe. I had applied the primer to the edging already so all that was left to do was the rolling. Before beginning, I put down some drop sheets to cover my vinyl flooring.

The drop sheets are cheap orange plastic that I bought from Bunnings. They're 2.6m x 3.6m and only $1.50 each. However, you get what you paid for. I had to be careful applying the masking tape as once you have adhered the tape, you can't remove it without stretching and ultimately tearing the plastic. I figure I am going to just throw them out afterwards.

DIY: Patching Walls

Tuesday 10th May 2011

I remember watching my Dad patch up walls around our family home when I was younger. I was really interested in all the do-it-yourself things my Dad does. He is such a jack-of-all-trades and it's amazing how he can do pretty much everything around the house himself. He paved our backyard. He landscaped our front yard (albeit rather rundown now due to lack of maintenance). He installed our backyard patio. He paints. He fixes and services our cars. He built our outdoor kitchen complete with a sink.

Anyhow, although I have never patched up a wall myself up until now, I have always known the basics to doing it and have even told others how to do it.




Find a crack/scratch in the plaster on the wall.



Using a scraping utensil, fill the crack with a filler compound ie Selley's Spakfilla.



Using the straight edge, wipe to remove any excess and allow it to dry.



It may require some light sanding afterwards.

Easy!

Painting 101

Tuesday 3rd May 2011

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.