Paneling? What paneling?
As I write this I'm waiting for another coat of paint to dry in the Man Cave. Despite no posts in the past week, we have actually been making progress on the room. The walls have actual paint on them now! I'm hoping that by this weekend all of the painting will be done and all that will be left is the flooring.
I have to admit that I went through a week without any motivation to work on the room because I didn't think it was coming out how I wanted it to. It's been so much prep time that I was getting frustrated that it wasn't coming out as I envisioned it would. Specifically, I wasn't happy that after hours of prep works, I could still see paneling peeking out from behind the walls.
When I last posted about the Man Cave I feared that I would never be able to cover up the paneling. Here's a picture from the last time I posted:
Despite spending hours filling in the crevices with joint compound, the walls still didn't look flat. Particularly at the bottom of the walls, as in the picture above, where there had been that awesome plastic molding. It left behind thick streaks of adhesive that caused bumps along the wall. Those bumps, combined with some shadows of paneling throughout the room, made for sloppy looking walls.
I was desperately trying to avoid having to sand where I applied the joint compound, for two reasons. 1) The instructions to the joint compound recommended against sanding, and 2) I had done so much prep work to the room that I just didn't want to spend any more time on it. Reason #2 was admittedly a poor reason not to sand. In the end, though, I decided to do it. I figured that if I tried to paint without sanding and it looked awful, then I would be kicking myself for at least not trying to sand.
So, despite "losing" more time on the project, I broke out the electric sander and got down to business.
Best decision ever.
OK, the better decision would have been for me to have worn a respirator mask while doing the sanding. The joint compound instructions were not kidding when they said it would be dusty! When I bought the joint compound I saw a tub that said something about it being "low dust," but I had no idea what that meant. Folks, if you ever need to buy joint compound, go with the "low dust" product!
Here are some pictures after sanding the heck out of the bottom of the walls, then priming everything:
It's not perfect, but it looks so much better than before. I'm not going to show you pictures with the real wall color on yet (I have to leave something to post about later!) but with the real paint on there the walls look nearly flawless.
Lesson learned: Take the time to prep the space. Then, when you think you're done with prep, do some more prep. It will be so worth it in the end.
Check out how great the room looks now that the trim and walls are all primed:
No more brown trim, and no more paneling! What more could a girl ask for!
I have to admit that I went through a week without any motivation to work on the room because I didn't think it was coming out how I wanted it to. It's been so much prep time that I was getting frustrated that it wasn't coming out as I envisioned it would. Specifically, I wasn't happy that after hours of prep works, I could still see paneling peeking out from behind the walls.
When I last posted about the Man Cave I feared that I would never be able to cover up the paneling. Here's a picture from the last time I posted:
Despite spending hours filling in the crevices with joint compound, the walls still didn't look flat. Particularly at the bottom of the walls, as in the picture above, where there had been that awesome plastic molding. It left behind thick streaks of adhesive that caused bumps along the wall. Those bumps, combined with some shadows of paneling throughout the room, made for sloppy looking walls.
I was desperately trying to avoid having to sand where I applied the joint compound, for two reasons. 1) The instructions to the joint compound recommended against sanding, and 2) I had done so much prep work to the room that I just didn't want to spend any more time on it. Reason #2 was admittedly a poor reason not to sand. In the end, though, I decided to do it. I figured that if I tried to paint without sanding and it looked awful, then I would be kicking myself for at least not trying to sand.
So, despite "losing" more time on the project, I broke out the electric sander and got down to business.
Best decision ever.
OK, the better decision would have been for me to have worn a respirator mask while doing the sanding. The joint compound instructions were not kidding when they said it would be dusty! When I bought the joint compound I saw a tub that said something about it being "low dust," but I had no idea what that meant. Folks, if you ever need to buy joint compound, go with the "low dust" product!
Here are some pictures after sanding the heck out of the bottom of the walls, then priming everything:
It's not perfect, but it looks so much better than before. I'm not going to show you pictures with the real wall color on yet (I have to leave something to post about later!) but with the real paint on there the walls look nearly flawless.
Lesson learned: Take the time to prep the space. Then, when you think you're done with prep, do some more prep. It will be so worth it in the end.
Check out how great the room looks now that the trim and walls are all primed:
No more brown trim, and no more paneling! What more could a girl ask for!
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