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When installing new flooring, it is recommended that you paint both the walls and trim before you install the floors, to prevent messy drips on your brand new (and more expensive – remember, paint is cheap!) floors.
Due to the hideous (and time-consuming removal of) wallpaper on the walls, I doubt I’ll get around to painting the walls before the floors go in, but I can certainly take care of the chair rail and baseboards. This dusty, dirty dining room (made worse by our carpet removal – no one tells you that carpet padding desintegrates into dust after 28 years!) needed a really good wipe-down before I could begin. After a quick cleaning, I was on my way.
I again used Behr’s primer-and-paint-combo in Ultra White on both the chair rail and baseboards to match the rest of the trim in the house. I should warn you that this color doesn’t really stay pure white, but yellows a tiny bit once it dries (I’m assuming it’s the primer part, because regular Behr paint doesn’t do this). I’m okay with the slightly more ivory-colored trim; it’s still a vast improvement from the original oak, and many of the colors in the house are (or will be) on the warm side, so ivory trim looks pretty good to me.
Of course, a room project wouldn’t be complete without its share of surprises. Case in point: while I was finishing off the first coat on the chair rail, I wound up noticing a teeny piece of loose trim, which then promptly fell out.
It made it easier to paint, though!
I got a little sloppy and didn’t notice I’d painted the living room divider until it was too late (and dried). Oops. Guess I’ll need to do a few touch-ups!
After a few coats, I’m already envisioning a brighter, cleaner room. Ah, the power of paint!
The power of paint is pretty incredible, isn't it? But ohmygosh, I HATE painting trim! Probably because we never buy the two-in-one primer stuff since we already have so much heavy duty primer lying around, and add the fact that I chose the whitest white at the store (appropriately dubbed “Ulta White”) for all the white trim – and everytime we paint trim now it takes us 3 stinkin' coats. It's no fun! :(
But the wood trim always looks amazing in white. As does yours! I'm such a sucker for white trim. :)
~Chelsea
Because of the primer, I've only needed two coats so far, but I imagine I'll do a third once Scott makes a few nicks in the baseboards while installing the floors. The primer helps for sure; my oak trim is pretty thirsty and takes so many coats without the primer!