Mudded, Scraped and Painted

 Remember that one time... back in April... that we tackled the upstairs "blue room"  and main floor half bath/hallway and knocked down all the popcorn ceiling? Yeah... um... since that undertaking it hasn't been touched. Meaning, the door has been shut with the painters plastic still on the floor heaped with popcorn ceiling junk. (Just the upstairs room. Obviously we cleaned up the hallway and bathroom.) 

Well, Ryan's parents were set to come out the beginning of October, so that gave us the perfect motivation to finally get that room done! 

A lot of our delay had been caused by being unsure how to do texture on the ceiling. Hiring out costs a lot. You can buy texture cans (kind of like spray paint cans with a straw) at Home Depot, but they are pricey and the square footage is really small per can. We also looked into renting a sprayer thingy from a paint store. It's a reasonable price, but we were hoping that if we were going to do that, that we would be able to have several areas ready to go so we could maximize the time we had it. (Kind of like renting a carpet cleaner. If you are going to pay $25ish bucks a day, you better clean your heart out. Haha.)

Ryan watched a lot of YouTube and DIY videos and finally came up with his own plan of action. I will be saying this until the day I die... I LOVE that Ryan is so handy! I love that he is willing to research, learn, and try things out. It amazes me. I get intimidated way too easily. He is my hero.

So, we bought a 5 gallon bucket of sheet rock mud and Ryan made his own "paddle" out of a piece of wood he cut to fit inside the bucket and fastened a handle onto it. After mixing up the mud stuff, he dipped the paddle in the mud and globed it onto the ceiling. Next, you have to "knock down" the globs to smooth it out. He started in the closet so he could figure out his technique. It looked so good! 

Though this technique probably (okay not probably - definitely) saved us a lot of money, it is tough! Hmmm... well, it's not that blobbing mud on the ceiling is really hard, but it is physically demanding. I tried a small area and my stupid shoulders and neck (which hate me on a daily basis just for being alive) really seized up. I wish I could have been more help, cause it is hard work, but ALL of the credit goes to Ryan for this one. This was NOT easy.

However, it looks AMAZING! Honestly - knocking down the popcorn ceiling and putting up texture took YEARS off the room. It looks professional, clean, and new. It is fabulous!

 It does take some time to dry. But once that is done, it's time to paint! We bought some Behr Paint and Primer in one. It's nice paint, but even with the primer, it sucked up a lot of paint since it was basically raw sheet rock underneath. We learned a lot from this project. When we moved downstairs to do the hallway, we bought some Kilz Primer which is meant for raw sheet rock. One coat of that and then a regular coat of paint was perfect. We will definitely do that instead of the paint and primer in one when we are ready for the other rooms.

While Ryan was working on the ceiling, my contribution was to clean all the walls really good and get them ready for their new coat of paint. We do want to do color some day, but we would like to add some trim around the room and paint the lower half. We aren't ready for that yet, and in the mean time, the blue needed to go. Sometimes just coming back to a nice coat of white can make a huge difference.

I couldn't resist the chance to show my Cougar pride before the blue disappeared. And just in case you were wondering - that blue was a BEAST to cover up. I think last count it took 4 coats to cover up. DIE blue! DIE!!! What's even more amazing is that as I was washing the walls, I found little bubbles or pockets from the last time it was painted. The entire room (closet included) was once a vibrant red. I like color - don't get be wrong - but come on! How could you live in a room that was entirely red?!

 It may have taken a TON of paint, but at long last - the blue was buried. And like I said before - sometimes white can just be so refreshing!

 
Doesn't it look amazing! And check out that ceiling! It is gorgeous! Thank you Ryan for all of your work! He is incredible. I did paint the baseboards and the closet, but other than that - this was all him. 

And in case you forgot just how scrumptious those popcorn ceilings are... here is a comparison:

 The top is from the hallway just outside this bedroom. Yum, right? We finished the project just a few days before his parents arrived. Okay well to be fair, we actually had it "done" at the beginning of September, but then a few days before they got here, we realized that the blue was still trying to play peekaboo and the closet really needed some attention, so we busted the paint out again. As much as I would like to tackle another room soon, it's so much work that we need some down time to forget the hassle. :) We never really have "down" time, but I guess "other project time" would suffice. Bring it on!