January's Project Phase 1: Painting the Man Cave

As you remember from this post, our January Project is to makeover Drew's Man Cave.  Our first step was to clean that room out and paint it.

We went with an Vintage Gray, a color from the Eddie Baur Valspar Signature Collection.  After talking to the guy at Lowe's we decided to go with an eggshell finish.  We also picked up a painting kit from Wooster.  It had a tray, 2 roller covers, a roller, and a 2" angled brush.  To finish out our shopping list, we got a roller extension pole, plastic drop cloths, Frog tape, a paint can opener, and paint sticks.

Now let's get to work!

First we cleared out the room, with the exception of the loveseat.  (We purchased the loveseat from the Corinthian Clearance Center in Corinth, MS a few months ago.  We put it together in that room, and we weren't sure we'd get it out.)

We turned the loveseat to give us more space.  The puppies quite enjoyed the extra space to play.

 

Then we covered the carpet with plastic drop cloths and used some blue painters tape to make sure it stayed at the edges.  No lie, it kind of felt like we were preparing a kill room just like Dexter.  

We used the Frog Tape to tape off the baseboards, around the doors, and around the windows.  I also added a strip on top of the outlets and light swtiches after taking the faceplates off.

Then we got to painting!  Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of us in the process of painting, but here's the skinny.  I "cut-in" around all of the trim and ceiling.  Drew followed behind with the roller.  We did two coats, letting the paint dry about 2 hours in between coats.  We used our break to go get some frozen custard from Bop's!

If you're new to painting, like we are, I definitely recommend using the Frog tape to tape off all the edges.  It allowed me to go much quicker without worrying about making a mess.  When we took the tape off, there were only a couple of spots where the paint bled.  Upon closer inspection, you could see the error was from us not pressing the tape all the way down.  Oops.

We chose not to tape off the ceiling and free-handed it instead.  After we get all of the rooms painted, we're going to put crown molding up.  It should cover any inconsistencies at the top of the wall.  (We're also planning to repaint trim when we put up crown molding so that everything matches.  This will cover up any drips we have when painting.)  My lines were a little wavy, but good for the most part.  We kept a wet rag on hand to wipe off anytime we hit the ceiling or a door, which happened more than we want to admit.

Okay, ready for the big revel?

 

Doesn't it look great?!  Drew said the blue-gray color looks a lot like the color of the Ole Miss football players' pants.  He keeps joking about calling Michael Thompson from the Athletics Department to verify the color.  Apparently the guy has a thing for making sure all Ole Miss colors are exactly right.  (That's Harvard Crimson and Yale Blue, in case you were wondering.)

You're probably spying that new entertainment center, awesome pictures hanging up, and the furniture rearrangement.  And where did all those DVDs go?  I'll tell you more about all of that in a future post!  There's still lots to do!  Remember, this is a January project, so we're trying to space things out.  :)

What do you think of the paint transformation?  Do you have any tips for beginner painters like us?  Any painting horror stories?  I'd love to hear about them!  Just add a comment below.