Fingerpainting

[hafoc]

So Tephra and I are in the middle of this enormous renovation of The Dwelling Formerly Known as Ugly House. This all got going because I spent a grand on laminate flooring. It's a really nice stone-tile pattern of laminate, with a 20 year guaruntee, and I got it for about a buck a square foot. Those of you familiar with the joys of home ownership will recognize this is a fantastic price. Generally, when I go to buy building materials I start looking around for things machined out of solid platinum, because I'm sure it would be cheaper than the prices for lumber, pipe, and wire.

Problem being we're painting first. Tephra said that since we were going to paint anyway we should do it before we put the floor down. Blast! I knew that, but I despise painting so much I was hoping it might escape her attention.

For various reasons chiefly involving money, we're painting over paneling. Covering the grooves in the paneling and also the thirty years' worth of dings, bangs, dents, and nail holes involves texture paint. We're learning a lot about how to use it, what it will do, and what it won't.

I'll skip the details. Once we had the walls primed and the grooves in the paneling filled-- that's important, a coat of texture paint alone won't cover linear imperfections like paneling grooves-- we were going around the hallway, me putting the texture paint on the wall with a big putty knife, Teph using a roller to work it up to a nice even orange-peelish texture. But getting good, even coverage wasn't easy. It was slow going, with Teph having to roller a LOT to get things done acceptably.

I think I had been threatening for the last session or two to just grab handfuls of the paint and fingerpaint it onto the walls. Tonight Teph mentioned that and sounded halfway serious. So I shrugged, put down the putty knife. Grabbed a handful of the stuff and slapped it on the wall. Literally slapped it on. SPLOKT!

Teph giggled.

I rubbed the paint around, and realized at once that (a) it was a LOT faster than the putty knife, (b) it actually made a more even coat than the putty knife did, and (c) you can create some very interesting textures that way. One of the nicer ones is to smear the stuff on the wall in a wavy pattern, fingers spread wide, then smooth it down a bit with the palm of your hand.

And oh, (d), cleanup of your "painting tool" is a snap.

Maybe that's what we'll do in the living room. We were already doing the very nice orange peel texture in the hall, so.. I just went SPLUTting paint onto the wall, and Teph followed with the roller, smoothing it and giving it the texture. It went very, very fast.

"You're having too much fun with that," she told me.

Yup. I was. :)

Comments

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

I've seen professional painters do that SPLUT technique, and it can be truly lovely. And that's a frighteningly good price on laminate! We've been at the home improvement store so much in the last 3 years, it feels like visiting the relatives instead of going shopping.