Sunday, August 12, 2007

Painting....a room!

I will warn you upfront, this may seem to be a advertisement. But it is my actual experience with a product that was so terrific, I had to share.

Six years ago, we moved into this house, and one of the first rooms we started to re-decorate was my youngest daughters. I was planning a mural for the room...one that actually was going to go all the way around the room. It was going to be an island in one corner, and then extend into the water, and gradually work around to deep underwater, with fish, and coral, etc. This was before I found polymer clay, and my creative energy was going into things like decorating the house, cooking, entertaining.....

But first we had to remove the wallpaper. The wallpaper had been there for over twenty years. And it did not want to come off those walls. It came in bits and pieces. And it appeared to have been put right onto the wallboard, without any paint or primer. It was the worst job I ever had of taking off wallpaper, and I have taken done my share of this kind of work. Eventually the wallpaper was removed, the walls sanded and primed, and I began painting. I got the sky and the water done. But the next step was going to be the artwork. It was going to take time. And time was in short supply. By this time I had found polymer clay. When I had time, her room was impossible to work in. When there was order in her room, I was swamped with work.....so, six years have passed, and her room has never been finished.

About a year ago we talked about whether the mural we planned was one she even wanted anymore. She loves reading books about dragons.....Tamar Pierce books, Dragonology, etc. So we decided we would paint the room one color, and then paint a dragon, a very large dragon, on the walls.

We picked the color, and the usual delays intervened.

Then this spring I was invited to a buzz campaign...(I had mentioned Bzzagent once before)....to try out a new paint from Benjamin Moore called Aura. It was supposed to be a wonder paint. Cover in most cases with one coat. Washable...even in a matte finish. Extremely durable and fade resistant. Fast drying and low odor. Everything you could want in a paint. Knowing I had to paint her room, and the range of colors I was covering...from white to deep dark blue....this sounded like a golden opportunity.

Even with a free gallon of paint, it has taken me this long to finally carve out the time to paint her room.

Yesterday, around midday, we went out to the paint store to pick up the paint. And I have to say this is not a wonder paint, it is a miracle paint. In four hours, we had bought the paint, cleared out space in her room...a bigger job than I expected....taped the trim, painted the room, and cleaned up! Four hours, from leaving the house to done. Unbelievable. What stunned me was being able to cover in one coat the range of color I had on those walls. This paint rocks!
I will warn you it is not cheap...$56 per gallon. But it is worth every penny. It will save you time, and paint. I have nearly a half of a gallon still left. We are going out to buy some to do the trim. And I may well get around to doing a few more rooms now. No paint I have ever used has been as good as this stuff. It truly lives up to the promise.

I still need to work on that dragon....December or January, when things slow down a bit, probably. But in the meantime, her room looks so much nicer, and it was so much easier to do than I ever anticipated. So, if you have a room to paint, seriously consider this paint. It more than delivers. No more product plugs for a while. I promise.

2 comments:

Libby said...

Now you post this, after we already painted my younger daughter's room. LOL I'm a big fan of Benjamin Moore paints, but I hadn't seen anything to persuade me to use their newest ultra premium line. I'll definitely think about it on our next project though.

Don't you love that your kids respond positively to color? And that they aren't afraid of it. Our daughters' bedrooms are electric lime green for one and a bright tangerine and pink for the other.

Judy said...

Sorry, Libby! If I had only gotten the paint sooner..! It really is great paint.
Your daughter's room sound terrific. My daughter's room is now a color called "Inspiration".....her choice in the regular paint was called "Snugglepuss". Can I find out how to get one of those jobs, naming colors??