DIY Painting Adventures

This past weekend was full of little projects around the house, until Sunday when my man was off and we finally got the guts to take on a painting project. Yes, my friends, paint. I’ve been daydreaming about brightening up our dark, dreary walls with the perfect pale aqua color to match our duvet. We currently live in a rental, but the landlord agreed to split the cost of paint with us so we decided to go for it since we will *hopefully* be staying put for a while. All the furniture in our bedroom is hand-me-down from family members that I was given when I started college (I have future project plans for these too!). So I am slowly but surely making these pieces our own. But anyway, back to the project at hand (see I’m already daydreaming about my future projects, no wonder I start 5 things at once!). Paint, back to paint. We started with a really dark and dreary tan paint color when we moved in. Here is the bedroom before we began the painting process, kind of dull right?

I bought a sample of a color we picked out called ‘Lagoon Green.’ (Samples are only about $3 so you aren’t out much if you don’t like it.) I really like the sample section I did on the wall, but as it turns out the paint looks MUCH different when it’s on ALL the walls…

I also purchased spackle and went to town on the 27 hundred holes that were in our walls. I did this the day before we started painting to give it a good head start on the drying process. We then removed all the outlet and light switch covers and taped off the window and door moldings. Then the painting began, the man did the trim while I did the roller. We used Glidden Duo Paint + Primer ironically called “Lagoon Green”. (You’ll see the irony in the final product photo.) We also ended up having to do 2 coats of paint because the dark tan on the walls did not cover well with the first coat. As you can see the final product is much more of a sky or baby blue than any kind of “Lagoon Green”. It was meant to be a very pale aqua/teal color, but Glidden failed us on this one.

We’re still proud of the result, and the space feels much more inviting and soothing now. We made it our own, which is not always the easiest thing to do in a rental property. I still have some decorating and finishing details to do on the room so it’s a work in progress. Next on my to-do list are those hand-me-down dressers!

Do you have any tips or tricks to make a rental your own, or to breathe life into an old space?

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