The boy room make over

Matthew decided that he wanted to paint his room after he helped me and a co-worker paint our offices.

He wanted it blue. Dark blue. Navy blue.

Okay, I can take a breath and live with that for a bedroom. But I drew the line at the navy blue ceiling. I told him that while he did not have to stark white on the ceiling, it was still my house and I didn't want a navy blue ceiling in there. So we compromised on a light blue ceiling (the color I probably would have picked for the walls) and his beloved navy blue for the walls. The trim will match the ceiling but in semi-gloss; not flat... once I buy some trip to install.

He has also requested wall-to-wall carpet but that will come later when I can afford it.

The room really was awful. It has never been painted as long as we have lived in the house and Matthew is the third teen to live in there. There were holes in the walls, dings in the walls, writing on the walls and ceiling... dirt... well, we won't talk about the dirt.

So, I bought all the stuff including a decent spackling knife and spackle and sanding blocks and roller handles and pole and roller covers and paint brush and drop cloth and we stared him on the prep work. Took him a week just to clean enough trash out of there to move the furniture.

Then he started patching. Ken showed him one way to do it. Then, when Ken was at work, I showed him the proper way to do it. Everything was sanded. Everything was damp cloth wiped. The floor was vaccuumed to remove most of the dust.

At my office I did all the prep work before he got there, and because we have drop tile ceilings, he didn't have to paint the ceiling and I did the cut-in work. All he had to do there was roll the walls and some touch up cut-ins.

He was pretty shocked to learn how much work went into starting from scratch. But he's doing it. Little by little. He does not like to work alone. Gets bored with noone to talk to, I think... not that he actually talks to me... but I think he needs the encouraging words to keep moving.

But the first coat is on the ceiling now. We will switch to a slighly fluffier roller for the second coat to hide the flaws left from the previous home owner who couldn't finish drywall worth a shit. But I just wasn't up to ripping down all the old tape and doing it over. A little texture will hide a lot of flaws. The dark walls will cut down on reflected light. It should be okay.

I hope we can get a second coat on the ceiling this evening.

Tomorrow we will tackle the walls.

I might get Ken to go out and get the trim and get it installed sometime in the coming week or two. Then we can finish the paint job and he can decorate how he wants.