(no subject)

[which_chick]

Over the last several years, a lot of the people I know have moved apartmenthood to homeownership and more than a few of them painted their rooms fairly vibrant colors. Donna and Matt's house, for example, is a feast for the eyes in lovely saturated colors with sparkley white trim. My cousin San's house is similarly bright and colorful. Anyway, I suspect part of the desire homeowners have for rooms in color stems from an extended period of apartment living.



Apartments are nearly always painted in some inoffensive shade of off-white. Our apartments are no exception. We use Canvas White, a shade of off white available in five-gallon buckets at our local hardware emporium. (We go through an awful lot of paint.) You'd think it'd be hard to see where you've been painting given that you're painting Canvas White over some other, similar shade of off white. That might be the case sometimes, but it wasn't the case at work today. Today, I painted #5 at 400, an apartment previously inhabited by a parakeet, an old man, and an inexhastible supply of Pantweed's Slim Pantellas (or similar boutique cigarish smoking thing). Basically, the walls were the color of tar. Just to see, I took a wet cloth and swiped it over a wall in the apartment to see if it'd wipe off the tar enough that I could write words on the wall, actual readable words. Yepper. The canvas white is a lot whiter than tar and suprisingly good at covering it up. I think one coat is going to do it for most of the rooms. I did a roller coat on all of the rooms today including the inside of the closet which we clearly hadn't done the last time we painted the apartment. It was a disturbing shade of mustard yellow... but now it is Canvas White. Canvas White, the borg of paint, assimilated the closet today.

Tomorrow, I'll edge the rooms (along the corners, where the roller doesn't quite do its magic, and along the trim where better control is the name of the game) and then *wash* all the trim (because it's sticky and tarry with a fair amount of dust on it) and hit it with high gloss white (Now available in latex easy-clean-up paint. Yay!) High gloss white for trim looks pretty good against the canvas white and maintains the general inoffensive tone of things.

I will probably also do the kitchen cabinets in high gloss white after I peel the greasy, sticky, artificial-wood-grain contact paper off of them. They were perfectly good metal cabinets until someone decided to cover them with dark artificial wood grain contact paper and I expect that they will be perfectly good metal cabinets again after I get done with them.

Comments

House of Many Colors

[valleyhi.livejournal.com]

I am not suprised that number 5 needed lots of painting work. M knows how long F was in there..its been at least eight years. Are you replacing/redoing the floors? Using the same paint also allows for quick touch-up work should you need to fix holes in a wall, something we never have to do;) The thing is tenants hate whatever color you use and always seem to want to repaint. Sometimes they ask ( and we say "no thanks" and sometimes you find the sponge painted walls when you come fix the sink. ) Note to tenants...we notice things when we come to visit. Things such as cats, painting, extra people, drugs, and large holes in wall. The landlord isn't really that stupid.
I painted every room in my house a different color. We had red, yellow, green, blue, terra cotta, and sort of lavender walls. Each room did have a white ceiling. I miss my colors.

Re: House of Many Colors

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

The carpets look like hell but we're going to try to run the cleaner over them to see what happens. They're definitely 1970's era and I agree that a nice beige berber would look a lot better. I might float that against Dad when he gets back but hell, whoever rents it has to live next to Melva anyway so it's not like better carpet can fix that. The linoleum in the bathroom is shot and curling up around all appliances, looks like hell, the gap is way too wide to caulk. I'm arguing that we replace it. The kitchen linoleum isn't as bad... washing it might be enough.