Room Painting! The Office

Sunday, February 17, 2019

Half-painted trim and wallpaper so loose on the wall you can squish your whole forearm behind it were the motivation for this mad-dash of rehabbing the office. J was out of town for 7 days and the dog had just undergone spaying surgery, so it seemed like the perfect time. In just 7 days I had everything done, except the second cutting-in by hand, replacing the outlets, and hanging the artwork!

The 7 day process was only possible because the wallpaper in this room was much easier to remove than the previous two rooms. 'Mostly came off in large sheets. Now I understand what people mean when they claim to enjoy wallpaper removal. I got 90% of it off the walls in the first 3 hours of work. And then getting the remaining 10% was quite a struggle, but no moreso than the other rooms. In many spots, the wallpaper removed some of the primer and paint layer underneath it, and even with lots of sand-spackle-sand, the edges are still visible if you're looking for it, or if you run your hand over it. Every room is getting primed before being painted, mostly because it looks like paint chips off the smooth plaster pretty easily. None of the walls appear to have been primed before being painted on, so hopefully some modern primer helps the situation.

Bonus- because the wallpaper removed some of the paint layers underneath, I was able to observe that the walls were the same mid-toned aqua as the hallway closets!


These baseboard radiators might be in the worst condition of all the radiators in the house. I typically scrape with a metal putty knife, sand with a power sander, then hand sand, clean with a wire brush and soap, prime with Rustoleum Clean Metal Primer x2, and then paint with the same latex paint used for the trim. The hope is that the Clean Metal Primer will help prevent the rest of the paint from chipping off, and also bond well to the exposed metal. The baseboards in this room probably took twice as long to scrape as the other trooms. Even though the final finish isn't smooth, it's at least not eye-catching. Most of the fixes around here I just hope for 'not eye-catching.'


This room used to be the master bedroom, hence the giant built-in wardrobe which currently houses lots and lots of office-related travel goodness that we used to keep in shelves. Now we can put all our bric-a-brac on display instead:

We still need to sand/prime/paint the window sashings and purchase some new curtains and hardware, but the progress so far is an enjoyable upgrade.


This was also a great opportunity to cover up some over-looked trim-painting, which seems to be quite common in the house...The trim was painted an off-white creamy color which is coming back into style, much like the metallic wallpaper we removed from the hallway! But what's not coming back into style? Dingy paint that hasn't been touched in 50+ years, and half-painted trim!

The walls are painted Benjamin Moore 'Smoke' (Regal Select) in an eggshell finish. I wanted something light blue with a bit of green in it without looking baby blue hence the gray. Benjamin Moore Smoke has a fair amount of gray in it, but I like it a lot. So much more soothing than busy yellow wallpaper! 'Quiet Moments' or 'Palladian Blue' were possible runner-ups, but I'm a big fan of the amped up gray in Smoke. I enjoy its color changing throughout the day. During daylight, the walls are clearly blue, and when there's low-lighting the walls look medium gray with a hint of blue. The window sashing still needs to be painted (when it's warm enough to keep the windows open). I'm thinking Benjamin Moore Hale Navy for that.

The trim and baseboards are Sherwin Williams 'Extra White' (Emerald) in a semi-gloss finish (wait for a 30-40% off event). Ceilings are Zinsser Stainblock Ceiling Paint in flat bright white (straight out of the can), this room could probably use a third coat of ceiling paint. There are spots of the wall and ceiling that encountered some water damage at some distant point (the wallpaper was unaffected). Some small corner of the office has ceiling that gives a bit when pushed. 'Something to watch out for. Ah, old houses!