I have never before attempted to paint over dark molding, which is EVERYWHERE in this house. I was concerned that without sanding it first, the new paint wouldn't stick, and would easily be scratched.
After googling the problem, I found a product called "liquid sandpaper" that you paint on the surface of your project (for woodwork that needs painting where sanding it with paper is impractical or impossible). After applying, you let it dry about 15 minutes and then start your painting.
I tested the liquid sandpaper in two different areas. After a week, on one of the molding strips I painted the paint was completely resistant to my attempts to scratch it, on the other, it scratched off easily. On the area where it scratched off easily, I don't think I let the liquid sandpaper dry completely. At least I hope this is what happened. Otherwise, I have no idea why it didn't work there when it worked on the other molding strip.
My worst nightmare is spending hours and hours of my life painting molding, only to have it scratch off the first time it gets kicked accidentally.
Since I had (and have) no Plan B, I went ahead and painted the rest of the floor molding in the bedroom. So far, so good. It looks so much better, so much brighter! But I don't have the heart to test it by trying to scratch it up. Now that it's on, I'm going to leave it and hope for the best.
This will easily be the hardest part of painting the house. And by hard, what I really mean is - very, very tedious and monotonous. After cleaning the molding, and putting on a layer of the liquid sandpaper, it took four coats of white paint to completely cover the dark molding. And painting molding is not like paint rolling a wall - you have to be very precise, so each coat takes much longer to put on.
And rimming every floor and ceiling of every room of this house is dark molding. Not to mention the dark bedroom wall spindles, as well as every dark stained door in the house and all of the bathroom and kitchen cabinets. (And there are two kitchens!)
I definitely have my work cut out for me. This is the part where I wish my dogs could babysit the foster kids during the day, so my son could help me paint, but someone told me that was a bad idea. Oh well.
Anyway, once the floor molding got painted, my son and I set the bed up, and even though there's still more molding to paint, it's starting to feel like a real room.
Here is what the bedroom looked like before:
Here is how it looks now:
Doesn't Shiloh look like she approves?
This is the king size bed frame my son and I found on the side of the road with a "free" sign attached. The mattresses and box springs were also free - they came from the 2nd mother lode giveaway house. We bought an $80 gel foam mattress topper from Wal-Mart that is REALLY comfortable. Love the bed!
Here you can see the faint lilac color that the walls are painted - I really liked how the color turned out! It definitely lightened up the room but gives just a hint of color.
I've still got to paint the window frame, the spindles, the cabinet, the doors (there are two - one is to the closet) and both of the door frames. *sigh*
Thank you, God, for a great house to paint!
I'm still looking for nightstands and an armoire...the shopping part's the fun part!
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