How to paint over stripes- the satisfaction of a finished product

My life's mission is complete. The stripes are gone, guys!

Ok, so that's not my life's mission, but it was high up on the list of immediate priorities.

So with no further ado, I give you my stripeless room:

Pretty, huh? Can you even believe the transformation?

Your level of awe is not sufficient. Here, let me help.

to

OK, that's better. See what a difference it made. No more creepy, homicidal clown visions. Just serenity.

The color is Mossy Log by Valspar.

I had actually chosen a different color at Home Depot, but I forgot that the nearest Depot is like two hours away. We went to a large local hardware store where I picked out a different brand and color, but the employees were too busy to help us. Seriously. Beau asked for help and the guy said, "no." Not, "Oh, yeah, paint's not my department but let me get _____." Or even, "I don't do paint. ______ up front can help you." Instead we just got a "no".

That didn't sit well with us, so we went to a teensy tiny local construction center that also has a little paint section. I wasn't optimistic, but I got lucky and ended up falling in love with Mossy Log.

I don't know if you're like me, but picking paint colors can be paralyzingly difficult. Here I was, picking out a third color for the same space in the period of a few days. Yes, there is color matching, but that isn't quite right.

And what if the color is wrong? What if I spend all. that. time. painting and it ends up looking terrible? That's the part that paralyzes me.

Fortunately, this time I think I pulled it off.

Obviously will need to paint the upper portion of the walls, but that'll happen another day. (I want to wait to make sure the rot on this floor isn't bad. If it is, the builders will be tearing out one whole wall that needs paint. We're all praying that isn't the case. So far the peek under the siding looks relatively rot-free.

So, where I last left off I had sanded and patched, sanded again, and wiped. The only other prep work I did was taping. Even though we are going to replace the floors and I'll paint the upper half of the walls, I have no idea when either of those will happen. I can be a little "free" with paint, so I wanted to keep my "freedom" restricted so I'm not looking at it for the next millennium.

To start the painting process, I primed. Unfortunately, the little store we went to didn't have a primer with the same color base as our Mossy Log. Normally, you would prime in the color you are going to paint, but because we didn't know what the primer would look like if we added the color to the wrong base, we played it safe and left the primer white.

The Valspar Medallion paint we used is a primer and paint in one, but a few days before I put Bran Muffin over the purple bedroom and it took two coats.

Here's the bedroom. It probably feels bad for not having a whole post devoted to it, but you kind people can only take so much rambling about paint...

See how good that looks!?! I'm a painting fool.

Anyway, I knew that covering the stripes and the burgundy was going to take at least three coats of the Valspar if we didn't use a coat of primer. The primer was significantly cheaper and I thought it would probably not do my heart good if I didn't prime and the first coat of paint looked terrible. That's pretty much how technical we got about the "to prime or not to prime" question.

The coat of primer looked terrible.

But I was OK with that. It was white. It was on an awful color and it was a cheap brand.

Had we had access to the ridiculously large selection of a store like The Home Depot, we probably would have opted for a better primer, but for all intents and purposes, the bargain basement version did the trick.

The next day I had Beau take Little Man out so I could do my first coat of the Mossy Log. They went back to the tiny local hardware store and my son got to dump a load from a front loader. But that is a whole different story.

As a side note, the Valspar Medallion is very low VOC and safe for children. As safe as paint fumes can be. I still prefer he not be in the building when I paint. That and he's very "helpful" and I had visions of him finger painting on my walls. Here is is trying to be helpful.

I had a minor heart attack when I painted both striped walls and before starting the burgundy walls I turned to admire my hard work. The stripes were back. Like the killer clown of my nightmares. Like a a bad meal at a greasy diner that creeps up hours later. I almost cried.

Dejected, I moved on to my burgundy walls. When I went back to scowl at the stripes that were showing through, they were gone. Like magic. I could have kissed them.

Two days later, I quickly applied my second coat and I got my finished product. If you look closely enough, there are still slight bumps where the stripes were. I don't know why you would, though. There is soothing Mossy Log on the walls.

Did I mention I love it? Imagine what it is going to look like with lovely dark floors and chunky, white baseboards. I want to kiss the walls.

What do you think? Anyone out there as excited as I am?