Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Wood Paneling, part one.

First of all, I'd like to announce that the Jasper household is back online! That is right - we've rejoined the new millennium in one sense, internet. We are still holding out on cable, though. I found I didn't really miss either. The internet was a must because of Jake's studies but I actually felt liberated to not be drawn into HGTV or the facebook. For those who know me well, that HAS to be a shocker.


Moving on... my number one project from day one of moving in has been to paint the paneling in our den. It is wood paneling and I don't even mean nice wood paneling. We estimate that our den was an addition from the 70's (confirmed by "insulation" in the form of newspaper stuffed under a window in the den with the date of 1971) and the paneling represents that decade well (as does most of the kitchen).


Check out the sweet paneling - This is a view of the den taken standing at the back door - to your left is the mini-hall to the kitchen. The door you see leads in to the dining room, which can be viewed in the beeswax painting blog entry.

Little did I know how hard of a task this would become. We did a little research (thanks Young House Love for the tips!) and found out that most people say to use an oil based primer (we used Kilz) and latex paint. Now, some people say that you can use latex primer and I wish we had at times but apparently it doesn't allow the paint to adhere as well, so even if the oil based was a pain, it will be worth it...


We decided that last weekend would be the day to tackle this project. Armed with information, enthusiasm, and a desire to rid our house of the 70's feel, we bought one gallon of oil based primer. My mom joined in for the fun and we started painting the grooves and the trim with brushes, planning to roll the walls after doing the details. Naively, I thought it would take an hour, two tops, and we'd have the green on the walls in no time.

Six hours, one gallon of primer, and several brain cells later, this is where we stood:

We ran out of primer, I was covered in white goop, and we still had the top and bottom of several walls to go. Defeated, we threw in the towel, cleaned up as best we could, and headed to dinner.

The next day, we hit up Home Depot with a renewed spirit. With Jake out studying, my mom and I tackled the rest alone. Only about two hours later, we were finished!


The view standing in the den looking at the back door - which I painted "Florentine Clay" last week.


In order to help understand the flow of this room, a picture of the den/kitchen action - when you stand at the backdoor, you see the kitchen ahead and the den to your right. We are painting the paneling in the little kitchen mini-hall to match the den since a lot of the wall shows. Eventually, we hope to have part of the wall taken out to open the kitchen up.

We still have to actually paint but it does feel a lot better to get started. It won't be for a bit that we get to paint - maybe Thanksgiving weekend, since I have Model UN this weekend.

In closing, a few pieces of advice:
1) if you think you want to paint your paneling, REALLY want to paint it or else it isn't worth it
2) open windows and doors while painting with oil based paints as to not make yourself sick (love you, Jake!)

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