Okay, time to brush up on your Bible stories. Remember the Miracle of the Multiplication where Jesus blessed a few fish and loaves of bread, then fed a multitude, and then had baskets of leftovers? Well, I have witnessed a modern day Miracle of the Multiplication, however instead of involving bread and fish, it involved... paint.
I've been painting at the new house like a mad woman for the past few weeks. I bought 8 gallons of paint and started off in Nolan's huge room. Afterward, I painted 2 upstairs bedrooms, a large bathroom, a laundry room, and 2 walls of the master bathroom (so that put me at 6 rooms). I did a lot of painting with 8 gallons of paint! Nolan's room is huge... 13' x 16'. The upstairs rooms are more typical sized (10' x 12' and 11' x 12', but both have 9' ceilings). The big bathroom has 2 make-up vanities in it and the shower and toilet in a separate room. I thought I was done with the "Phase One critical painting", however on Wednesday night, Jonathan asked why I didn't paint his room. I told him that his paint didn't qualify as "ugly enough" for the first round of painting (his walls were a strange shade of blue that looked lilac in certain lighting). He asked if there was leftover paint. I said yes, but didn't think there was enough for his big room (which is comparable to the size of Nolan's room). I agreed to give it a try though and see how far the last of the paint would go.
Together we (Jonathan and I) prepped Jonathan's room. Then I did the brush work and Jonathan followed me around with a mini-roller recoating the brushwork and painting the small areas between the closets and the walls, above the doors, etc. I got out the big roller and put on coat #1. Jonathan kept doing touch ups and painting other areas. I told him it was time to conserve paint and to stop loading his roller. I started on coat #2. I got 2 walls painted and thought that maybe I could stretch the paint out to get part of one more wall painted before doing a sprint to Home Depot for more paint. Wall #3 got painted and there was still paint the can. I started on wall #4 and got it painted as well with paint to spare! When we finished, there was maybe a cup of paint left in the can. I never knew 8 gallons of paint could go so far! Based on Home Depots calculations, the paint should not have gone nearly as far as it did, and no, I didn't skimp on the amount of paint I put on the roller.
So now, as an unpaid testimonial, I highly recommend to anyone who has a painting project Home Depot's newest interior paint! The Behr Ultra paint is amazing! It is paint and primer in one. I covered the most obnoxious paint colors (day-glow green, turquiose, etc.) with just 2 coats. The paint man at Home Depot said the it would take a coat of primer plus 3 coats of the regular Behr paint to do what 2 coats of the Ultra paint could do. I was skepitcal, but now am a believer. I thought the paint would do what the guy said it could if I was painting over a nice, calm, pale color, but it worked amazing on the bright/bold stuff. Yes, the paint costs more... $31 a gallon, but it saved time by only requiring 2 coats, and is actually cheaper since you use less paint overall. Give it a try!
Here is the bathroom's ugly "before" picture (minus the tropical fish wallpaper border). Dan says this picture doesn't show how ugly the room really was!
Here is the "after" picture!
