ORC Week 5: Time to Paint!

The first half of this week was spent waiting on items to come in. We wanted to start spray painting the built-ins we created but the paint spray that Graco graciously gifted us was delayed. So I shifted my focus to the fifth wall, the ceiling. In the previous week, I mentioned I was trying to decide between two ceiling colors, Soft White or Ambrosia. I chose Ambrosia 893 by Benjamin Moore because it has a subtle hint of peach that I think will nicely compliment the vibrant blue we are about to add to the built-ins.

It’s hard to tell here but the peach color added such a warmth to the room. The gray walls going to be covered with wallpaper and wainscotting will be painted nice vibrant blue.

Speaking of blue, if you have not read Week 3 where I talk about the Best Saturated Blue Paint Color, it’s a must-read. Especially if you are looking for a blue navy color that is more saturated in color rather than one with a ton of gray undertones. Now, I must admit, although the color I wrote about is the perfect navy, I did change my mind about using it on our built-ins. Now you may be asking yourself why am I promoting a color that I’m not even going to use. I still think it’s the perfect navy color. I just learned over the last couple of weeks that any navy color is going to be too dark for our library room. I realized that after having a ton of samples on the built-ins ( I even added three more this week) they all looked almost black most of the day. While the library room is south facing, the room still gets a good amount of shade, thus making the room feel dark. So what color did I end up choosing?

Drum roll because this is the final color.

Blueberry by Benjamin Moore!

Blueberry is the number five in the images above. It’s the most vibrant and bold of all the choice. I realized I wanted something more bold in this room

When our Graco Magnum X7 paint sprayer arrived this weekend, I was more than ready to give the new color a try and it did not disappoint. Here is what the built-ins look like sprayed with a Blueberry tinted primer.

BENEFITS OF USING A PAINT SPRAYER

We have not sprayed the final coat of paint but our first impression of the Graco sprayer is this.

Easy to set-up, easy to use, and easy to clean.

I don’t know why I have given a paint sprayer a try sooner. Spraying the built-ins took us about 10 minutes while hand painting it would have taken us several of hours. The amount of time this paint sprayer saves on one job more than covers the cost of the paint sprayer.

We chose the Graco Magnumn X7 sprayer because can handle big and small jobs and it makes cleaning super easy. One of our future projects will be painting the exterior of our house and this sprayer will be perfect for that.

Another huge advantage of this sprayer is that you don’t have to thin the paint, regardless of the type of paint you use. To me this is a hug benefit because having to figure out some kind of formula for thinning paint sounds daunting and time consuming.

Did I mention it saves an incredible amount of time?

While we were waiting for the paint sprayer to arrive we painted the ceiling and primed everything below the chair rail with a roller. Not only did that take us several hours to complete, it was exhausting and unnecessary. With the paint sprayer we could have completed all that work in less than 20 minutes.

TASKS FOR NEXT WEEK

Next week we will spray paint the built-ins and everything below the chair rail with the final coat of paint and start wallpapering the walls above the chair rail. I’m extremely excited about next week because those two tasks will finally bring my vision to life.

Thanks for following along! Stay tuned next week with more insights on using the spray painting and many tips and tricks for installing wallpaper.

Be sure to follow other ORC transformations here.