#TheHomeImprovementLife: Paint!

So now that we have all the popcorn off the walls, we now get to the fun part...paint! I have always loved painting, but it's such a small portion of what you actually do when you paint a room. 20% is painting, 80% is prepping the wall to paint!

First thing I had to do is sand down the joint areas on the ceiling and make sure there weren't any rough spots. I bought a handy dandy sanding block that you can put on a stick! Yay for no more reaching on ladders!

Love my new drywall ceiling sander!

Next thing I had to do was prime the ceiling. I have liked Kilz for priming, especially for ceilings. I remember going to a home improvement "expo" and seeing the difference helping the paint job last. Plus it just covers well! 

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Then, came the hour of removing any grit from drywall and plaster dust and taping the room off. So tedious...but so important! 

All taped off!

Now we get to paint! Again, love my roller on a stick so I can actually reach! 

Painting the ceiling!

I let the ceiling dry overnight and spent the next day taping and painting the rest of the walls!

Cutting in!

You can see how it goes on vs how it dries in this pic!

You can get a lot of really good tips on painting techniques online or even at Home Depot/Lowes. I've been doing it with my mom so long I have developed a method that works for me. Just know that quality of paint does matter in the amount of work you have to do, and be sure to use good natural light so that you can see any spots you miss. This is really important on textured walls like we have!

#TheHomeImprovementLife: Taking Off The Popcorn

So, we talked about project management (booooorring, but necessary). Let's get our hands dirty now!

Here are my before pictures!

As you enter the room

Far side wall

Turning right...

Turning right again...

Turning right again...

So when you scrape popcorn off the ceiling, it's important to note that you don't want to do this yourself is your house is older. I think cerca the 70's but don't quote me on that. Reason is, you may have asbestos in your popcorn ceiling insulation! Bad news! My house was built in the 2000's so I didn't have to worry about that.

Also thing to note is it is SO much easier to do this when you have gotten the popcorn wet first. Cuts down on the dust and makes it come off so much easier! I used an $8.00, one gallon sprayer you would see a pest guy use or to use to spray weeds. Just fill it with water, pump and spray! You will need to also prep your area by taping off the walls and floors and putting plastic to cover everything...this is extremely messy and hard to vacuum up! Finally, grab your ladder and dry wall scraper, along with your goggles and face mask!

Once you have the room prepped, it's really pretty simple. Spray a section at a time (I did approximately 10 ft by 10 ft) and wait for it to soak in (this is important! Gotta let it get all the way through)! Then, climb up on your ladder and start scraping. It's best if you have a 45 degree angle between the scraper and the ceiling.

Half way there!

Notice how I have taped the plastic as high up above the walls as I can!

This room only took an hour to do as it's only 100 square feet, but I can see why many people would want a contractor to come do it. My shoulders were pretty sore after and I was pretty messy! But once we were done we carefully balled all the plaster in the middle of the plastic and threw it away!

Finally done!

Completely covered in plaster

Tomorrow I'm painting the ceiling. Gotta cover up the now bare dry wall! Yay!

#TheHomeImprovementLife: Project Management

Hello again! Hope everyone is doing great. Jared and I had a great weekend where we went to Houston for some work training for me and time with family. One thing we realized while down there, is we are going to have a ton of guest coming to our house soon...and no place for them to sleep! We decided then to take a small amount of the bonus that Jared got from work last year and use it to remodel our guest room so we can host our guests comfortably!

So, I'm weird. And between me and Jared, we communicate weird on projects. I like writing things out so that I can realistically see how things can be done. Jared likes to see my designs on paper so he understands what I'm wanting (smart man)! So, what I wanted to share on the blog today is how I make a project management spreadsheet. My hope is it helps you plan your next home improvement project!

First, I draw out what I want things to look like. Then, from those drawings, I write down all the projects that I see in my drawing and list them in the spreadsheet. I like to use Google Docs so that Jared and see the spreadsheet too.

From there, I make a tab for each of the projects:

After I select the tab and write down the steps I would need to do to complete each project, and approximate the amount of time each needs to take. I don't try to be exact, but to just have a realistic expectation that things might take longer than I'd like.

Then I have the spreadsheet link each of these total times to the first tab with my list of all projects. I then assign a priority to each project, keeping in mind that if I start one project (like the curtains) getting the curtain rods and curtain holders would be the same priority.

Then we sort by priority and longest amount of hours and we now have a great visual on which projects we should start first!

Jared is on the project of building the platform bed and I'm on painting the room. Next time, I'll show you how we de-popcorned the ceiling!