Painting a Big House

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I did my entire house on flat because the drywall job wasn;t great (cheap flip job) and eggshell showed the lines and lousy sanding job more clearly because it reflects light better. If not for that, I'd have chosen eggshell.

We are repainting a 3000 SF house now too, OP. I hear you about the sticker shock. And we are doing exterior painting, too. Eep.

While I prefer eggshell aesthetically, we are leaning toward going with flat b/c the walls are plaster and have lots of contour and some mars to them. We've been advised by both painters who've quoted us (like the PP^^) that the eggshell will show the mars much more due to the light reflection. We've also been told that flat is easier to touch up w/ paint, w/o the touch-ups showing. We have a 3 yo and 1 yo who will undoubtedly take a marker to the walls here and there in time, so we figured we'd do touch ups rather than wiping down the walls or using magic eraser, etc. Is that impractical?

9:44, did you have plaster or drywall walls?

Perhaps satin, as an in-between?

I'll be interested to see more responses b/c we are in the same boat as you (except I'm guessing your house doesn't have wavy plaster walls!)...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eggshell. We redid our basement and I forgot to mention that's what I wanted to our contractor. He painted it in flat and after a month there were scuffs on the wall. I can magic eraser and spray clean EVERYTHING off of the eggshell walls upstairs, but we're going to have to repaint the stupid basement now.

And I agree with pps who say to do it yourself. DH and his friend did our main floor, and I did my master and laundry rooms myself and they turned out great. If you see any imperfections in your drywall, sand them out, wash your walls, and get a forgiving paint. I know everyone on here loves Aura, but I prefer Behr Ultra. It goes on great and it's really affordable. Duron's higher end stuff is nice too and it's all Sherwin Williams color.

No, no, no. Not Behr.

Quality paint costs $60 a gallon.

the new behr premium self priming is excellent and cheap

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did my entire house on flat because the drywall job wasn;t great (cheap flip job) and eggshell showed the lines and lousy sanding job more clearly because it reflects light better. If not for that, I'd have chosen eggshell.

We are repainting a 3000 SF house now too, OP. I hear you about the sticker shock. And we are doing exterior painting, too. Eep.

While I prefer eggshell aesthetically, we are leaning toward going with flat b/c the walls are plaster and have lots of contour and some mars to them. We've been advised by both painters who've quoted us (like the PP^^) that the eggshell will show the mars much more due to the light reflection. We've also been told that flat is easier to touch up w/ paint, w/o the touch-ups showing. We have a 3 yo and 1 yo who will undoubtedly take a marker to the walls here and there in time, so we figured we'd do touch ups rather than wiping down the walls or using magic eraser, etc. Is that impractical?

9:44, did you have plaster or drywall walls?

Perhaps satin, as an in-between?

I'll be interested to see more responses b/c we are in the same boat as you (except I'm guessing your house doesn't have wavy plaster walls!)...

+1 for satin w/ toddler and new born

[Anonymous]

Montana wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I recently tried to paint our living room. It wasn't hard except for the edges - I just couldn't get it to look good enough where the colored wall meets the white ceiling and where the wall meets the white molding. It looks so amateurish. Any tips?

Buy the green-colored Crocidile tape. It is expensive, about $12 a roll. I painted 3 rooms w different colors, including white ceilings. All the hard work goes in putting the tape down. The painting is easy, and very cool when you remove it.

Agree. Tape it and it's easy enough. I tried a couple different ways (using an edger) and always come back to tape.
And, I just want to add professional painters often do a really sloppy job. Both of our past houses I have been horrible in some spots. They don't take off hardware and just paint around, etc. So go easy on yourself. It is really easy to see the mistakes when you are inches away doing it yourself, but painters are never perfect either.

[Anonymous]

OP, just curious what the estimates were?

You could post something on craigslist gigs asking for bids, i'm sure you could get the price much lower.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eggshell. We redid our basement and I forgot to mention that's what I wanted to our contractor. He painted it in flat and after a month there were scuffs on the wall. I can magic eraser and spray clean EVERYTHING off of the eggshell walls upstairs, but we're going to have to repaint the stupid basement now.

And I agree with pps who say to do it yourself. DH and his friend did our main floor, and I did my master and laundry rooms myself and they turned out great. If you see any imperfections in your drywall, sand them out, wash your walls, and get a forgiving paint. I know everyone on here loves Aura, but I prefer Behr Ultra. It goes on great and it's really affordable. Duron's higher end stuff is nice too and it's all Sherwin Williams color.

No, no, no. Not Behr.

Quality paint costs $60 a gallon.

the new behr premium self priming is excellent and cheap

I'm the first pp in the quote and that's what I used. It's been up for 5 years now and it looks just as good as the day it went on.

[Anonymous]

I'm curious too how high the bids could possibly be? I have a guy that did some work for us. I was happy with him and thought the price was reasonable.

[Anonymous]

you can start with 1 room. we totally recomended Mr Camp he is very professional fixing and painting anything .
plus he lives in the area.
Best Regards
Sussy

[Anonymous]

I'm the 3000+ sf house owner also preparing for a whole house paint job, not OP, and the 2 quotes we just got for painting the entire interior, including skim coating several plaster walls and smoothing out 3 ceilings, and painting all the trim, windows, molding, baseboards, etc, were very close to each other right around $15k, give or take $500.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm the 3000+ sf house owner also preparing for a whole house paint job, not OP, and the 2 quotes we just got for painting the entire interior, including skim coating several plaster walls and smoothing out 3 ceilings, and painting all the trim, windows, molding, baseboards, etc, were very close to each other right around $15k, give or take $500.

Ps. this includes their scraping and sanding all trim, etc, not just painting over. There is a lot of old, glopped over trim in the house so I think this was a big factor in our quotes, at least.

[Anonymous]

I have a large house as well, and am about to ask for quotes for painting. I decided to split the house into 4 areas - (1) basement and garage (2) first floor and stairs (3) master bedroom (4) kids bedrooms and baths. I intend to ask for quotes broken into the 4 areas. If its too expensive, I will only have some of the areas painted, and have the rest painted in 2 or 3 years.

[Anonymous]

What are the higher quality paints people are using? Can anyone give me a list of good quality paints for interior and exterior?

[Anonymous]

Farrow & Ball is supposed to be great. The ladies on the Washington Post home chat rave about it. It's really expensive -- runs about $100/gallon. I have to tell you, though, that I was comparing BM and F&B colors. The F&B color just popped against my fabric and I couldn't find anything comparable in BM. I'm still debating whether to actually buy it, though. It's a lot of money for paint on top of the cost of labor...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I recently tried to paint our living room. It wasn't hard except for the edges - I just couldn't get it to look good enough where the colored wall meets the white ceiling and where the wall meets the white molding. It looks so amateurish. Any tips?

If you have a decently steady hand, just use a brush with a very short handle and slanted bristles. You can buy one at Home Depot. I don't know why, but the short handle makes all the difference in how you control the brush. I never need tape.

If you do prefer to use tape, two tips: Make sure you press it down completely, especially the edges of the tape. Any place that isn't firmly affixed will allow the paint to get in there. Also, remove the tape as soon as your final coat is dry to the touch. If you wait too long, you may pull up some of your paint job with the tape.

I have never had good results with an edger. I suppose they'd be helpful if you have to use a tool on handle because a ladder won't work, i.e. near the ceiling on a staircase.

OP, I'll paint your house for you! I've been rehabbing my 90 year old house over the last seven years, and I do excellent work, if I do say so myself. (Actually, people who see my house say so, too.)

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for all the good advice and commiseration. While the first estimate was in the subcompact range, I've since gotten a second that was edging into family sedan territory. I do physically know how to paint, but given that the house would take a professional crew two full weeks, this is beyond my ability to do. Plus, I've seen the difference between professional and amateur jobs, and I don't want to go back.

I think what's going to work best for us is the advice to break the house into zones, and do the most important zone first.

Thanks also for validating my preference for eggshell! I was thinking I had to cave to flat for practicality, but who wants to spend that much money and not get what you really want?