June 17, 2013

Green Serene

Ding-dong patching is done, patching is done, patching is done! Ding-dong wicked patching is done! 
Well, almost done in this picture. The little blips of blue tape on the right hand wall mark where I had to sand and re-patch after the moisture in the primer raised the texture of the exposed paper bits of the sheetrock. Thankfully, it wasn't too widespread a problem.

Given the cranberry red paint on some portions of the walls, the ridiculous amount of patching - I think these walls are more spackle than sheetrock - and the various tones of mismatched white everywhere else, we primed with Kilz. It looked like we were having adhesion problems on the back wall. I still can't say for certain whether the bubbling paint was our Kilz or the paint applied by the previous owners. It was white on white. Too hard to tell. Regardless, after the Kilz dried I scrubbed the wall with wallpaper remover, rinsed well, waited for it to dry, and Kilz-ed again. This seemed to do the job.
The blue tape running the length of the walls is the approximate height at which we will (someday) install white chair rail. 
Since we need to paint all the trim (I Kilz-ed all of it when priming the walls), I cut in free hand, not worrying about a little green on the trim.
And I continued cutting in for about 5 hours. No joke. The actual painting with a roller took only about 45 minutes. But the most exciting thing is the circular holes in the soffit ceiling. See them up there dangling the orange capped wires? Those will soon be attached to LED lights. They are what we chose to replace the hideous rectangular chrome edged lights that were in the original kitchen. 
You can see 4 of the 5 chrome lights in this shot.
And a close-up for your viewing pleasure. I really don't think this picture does justice to the horridness of these lights. 
Now, how often do you see this? Valspar paint from Lowes at no charge. Before you get too excited for my super shopping skills, listen to this. I bought I gallon of each of the two colors for the kitchen (Tinted Spearmint & River Inlet) back in April. After putting on one coat of the green I realized I needed another gallon. So I trekked (an hour and a half adventure) to Lowes for more paint. Later the same day, in the midst of the second coat of paint I went to dip into the new gallon of green. Before I opened the can I noticed it wasn't the right color. The paint lady had mixed the next color down on the paint strip. So back to Lowes I go(another hour and a half), she mixes a new gallon while I return the wrong color for a full refund. She gives me the new-new paint which I scrutinize. It's the wrong color again. So, 3rd times a charm, she gets Tinted Spearmint for me and I'm on my way. Except now it's too late at night for more painting.

Next day, I begin painting where I left off on the second coat of green. I finish the wall. The paint doesn't look the same color. So I wait a few hours, hoping it will dry down to match. It doesn't. It's a different color. Before I go back to Lowes a third time, I phone and talk to Betty at the paint counter. Thank goodness for Betty. I was pretty darn angry by this point, but good customer service makes all the difference. No nonsense, matter-of-fact, told me to come in, ask for her by name and she'd take care of it. All of which she did.
For whatever reason, the formulas in the paint computer had changed. So even though the paint lady the day before mixed me a gallon of River Inlet and (eventually) a gallon of Tinted Spearmint, the colors did not match the same paint I had purchased 7 weeks ago. The numbers right above the bar code indicate the amount of tints added to the base paint. Even though I had 2 cans of Tinted Spearmint, the tint numbers didn't match. Go figure. So Betty mixed up a gallon of each color for me, matching the numbers on the original cans and gave them to me at no charge. So, if anyone is looking for some pretty blue and green paint, there's several gallons on the "oops" shelf at Lowes in Hamilton, OH.

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