Monday, September 3, 2012

Painting Nightmare :(

So we waited for weeks and weeks for the appointment we had made with a professional painter to paint our kitchen, dining area, living room, stairways up stairs and down and then the time came, we were so excited! First he spent a 6 hours on a Saturday doing the ceilings and it looked great, we found a few spots and he went over them, things seemed to be going good. Then the next day he came to start the bright lime green paint in the kitchen. He had said he needed to use a tinted primer to go over the wine color and we would only need 1 coat of the lime green paint. When I saw what he had did when priming that's when I started to worry. He didn't go over all the wine color with the primer as you can see in this picture where my husband is removing the curtain rod, he left it like that and had just lightly went over it missing SO many spots, so then on the next day he gave me the gallon of primer that he had only used a very tiny amount of (not sure why he didn't just buy a quart) we were paying for Benjamin Moore paint so it's not cheap. When he gave it to me saying he was done with the primer, I knew then something isn't right, why would he prime only certain spots and such a light coverage. I let him do his job, the lime green paint, he said he had to use a brush for everything because of the cabinets and stuff, I wondered about the little rollers but didn't say anything. When he was ready to leave after he said he had the first coat on, I told my husband to have him pull out the refrigerator because you could see the wine paint color behind it. Then I started looking where he had not even put primer and missed it with the paint, so many little areas by the cabinets and the side of the cabinet he told my husband he would not be able to get to! I then got so mad after he left and told Tom how can he not get to it, I picked up a small paint brush and showed how easy it would be to paint in that area. I went around taking pictures as you see below of the mistakes and missed areas, I thought about it that night and the next morning and after showing people at work, I decided NO more, he wasn't coming back and I would pay him for the ceiling and paint and we would do the painting ourselves. This guy was very nice, but nice doesn't matter when it comes to doing something right.

See above where there are so many spots of wine color not covered in primer

After he had given me back the primer and said he was done with it, he put on his first coat of green paint and this is what I found :( not good

hard to see but this is the side of the cabinet that he said he couldn't get to so the wine color was visible, all it took was a small brush

this is an example of patch work he did

so many brush strokes, wall looked a mess!


 On Thursday evening I started the primer on the wall that we were making dark gray. The color we picked was Benjamin Moore's Ashland Slate. The painter had already had the tinted primer and paint mixed up for us. I didn't open the paint but when I started the primer I thought this looks darker than the paint swatch so I then opened up the paint and saw it was. I finished the primer since I had it almost done. I thought I did a great job, I was in a great mood goofing off while Tom did the green paint, I kept him entertained by talking and singing and pretending I had my own paint show, it was a great night. It took me 7.5 hours to do one wall in primer! I did the edge work so well with a brush and no tape. I was very proud of myself. I did this between Thursday night and Friday night. I decided to go to the paint store and question the tinted primer before I started the paint. The guy told me that it was a mistake and the primer should not have been that dark. I asked him to please remix a new gallon of Ashland Slate to make sure that the colors weren't mixed, I thought maybe they made the primer the normal paint color and the paint the tinted primer color. He showed me the paint color was correct but offered to darken it more so it went over the primer better. I agreed and the color was great. I went home and started painting. I did all my edge work first and then the rolling, then the nightmares began. I noticed right away the edge work was darker than where I rolled, even going over it again, it was darker. After googling this, I found it's called Hatbanding or Picture Framing. It's where you put a heavy coat on the edge work then the rolled work isn't as heavy. Also I had did about 3 inches of edge work but still took the roller close to it. My husband then started rolling over the still wet paint and caused SO much texture on the wall. We used Wooster rollers and Purdy Brushes. We at first thought it was the roller but then realized when he rolled over the paint that was still not set, he pulled up the first coat causing the texure. The walls are dry wall and supposed to be smooth so this was so upsetting. Not only did we have texture, we had the hatbanding picture framing thing and also streaks all over the wall. Some parts would not even out at all. It looks so bad. After 4 coats of paint the walls are a mess, we have no choice but to sand everything off and start over. I am so upset, SO many hours wasted on 1 wall. Today he is starting the medium gray paint on the other walls. He wanted to put a 5th coat on the wall and I told him NO. Let's wait and go to the paint store and see if they can help us, the streaking makes me think something is wrong with the paint, too much oil or something in it. We have Eggshell finish on all the paints. Tom had ended up putting 2 more coats of the lime green over the 1st coat that the painter had did. The other thing that made me question the painter was he thought he would only need 1 coat of paint on all walls with the tinted primer, I was told at the paint store, 1 coat of primer 2 coats of paint on all colors but sometimes certain colors need more.

This is the wall on Thursday night that I primed

Friday night all the primer was on the wall, very dark chalkboard color which I love



This is the difference, I had painted the paint on the wall on the left side, this is the swatch held up beside it, but you can see the difference in tinted primer vs. paint how dark the primer is.

I thought my 111 Navy Chair looks great against the green and better with the darker wall


this is the texture now that is all over the walls from rolling it when the 1st coat was not set :( We have no choice but to sand it down

Haystack came into the kitchen when Tom was painting and must have rubbed against the wall


such a pretty girl :)



this is the wall last night with the streaking, uneven paint and tons of texture, I am so unhappy about this :(
So I don't know what we are going to do. The guy who fixed all of our dry wall problems is coming tomorrow night to finish the shower install and I am going to have him give us advice. I know we have to sand the wall to get it smooth again and this will take DAYS and DAYS. It's only 1 wall but it's very long. Any advice on painting and painting dark colors would be great. I did my son's room in dark gray, medium gray and light gray and never had a problem. I even went over purple with 1 coat and no primer and it turned out awesome, that's what makes me think it's the paint when it comes to the streaks and uneven coverage.

1 comment:

  1. Oh man. I feel for ya! Such a long {hard} process indeed. So I couldn't respond to your comment via email ... but I wanted to let you know that I'm pretty sure we used a "flat" paint for all of our walls (except for the bathroom). For the bathroom we used a semi-gloss I believe. It's been about 5 years since we painted, so please don't quote me on this. :) But I'm pretty sure we used flat.

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