Craft Room Remodel: Painting Damaged Walls

When the cat's away, this little mouse drags her tools out to play.

While Husband was out of town on a business trip, I painted the guest room/craft room. Good times!

Of course, I want to live in a bright crayon box. Why do you ask?

I'm a wild woman. This is how I party it up when Husband is out of town.

First, I had to unload the room. I ended up stashing stuff in every.single. room.of.the.house.

I'm thinking about keeping the ghetto fabulous light fixture in the new room.

Next, I opened a tub of spackle and used the flat edge of a 5 in 1 painter's tool to spread a thin layer of spackle to fill all of the holes, dents, and nicks in the drywall throughout the room. This was time consuming but worth it once the paint was dry on newly smooth walls.

Just like with paint, 2 thin coats of spackle are better than one thick coat.

I use DAP Dry Time Indicator Spackling because I've ruined more projects rushing to paint while the spackle is still wet. This DAP spackle goes on pink when it is wet and turns white when the spackle is completely dry and ready to sand.  Major project saver!

Once the spackle was completely dry I hand sand the dry spackled areas smooth with sandpaper. Grab your iPod or crank up Pandor because it might take awhile. Don't skimp on steps good paint prep makes the painting step easier.

My walls in my condo were first painted with cheap and watered down paint. After cleaning marks and dirt from the walls, I needed to prime them or the paint color will seep into the drywall. Then I'll need extra coats of paint to cover the wall and the finish won't look as nice as if I did it right and primed the walls with primer first. Remember - primer is our friend.

Since I am a bit of a paint geek, like to try different brands, and want this paint project to go as quickly as possible I bought Ohio made Glidden 2 in 1 Paint + Primer and had Lowes color match it to Dutch Boy's Crayola Sunglow. I'm going with a happy, shiny color for the walls because this is my happy, fun, creative space that guests sometimes sleep in.

This Glidden paint is a low VOC paint so there is some odor to it but it is fairly light compared to other brands of regular low VOC paint I've used in the past. I expected it to smell more because of the primer in the paint but it didn't.  I kept the window open while I painted so that might affect how mild it was on my sniffer. 

The paint went on easily and with good coverage. I let the first coat dry overnight and painted the second early the following day. I loved painting two coats of paint/primer instead of the traditional three (one primer coat followed by two paint coats.) It made the job go faster which was important because I was able to stash everything back in the room before I picked Husband up from the airport.

I love the color! It brightens up the room.  

Wowza! That's bright!

While I could see the floor, I went crazy and shampooed the carpeting too.

What do you think?

Did you enjoy this post? Get more like it by subscribing to the Condo Blues RSS Feed or to Condo Blues by Email.