ORC Week 2: Painting Ceilings
If you know me, you KNOW I hate painting ceilings. It is, for that reason specifically, that I typically make myself do it at the beginning of any room project. No fun stuff until the ceiling is painted. It’s very “queen of executive functioning” of me, isn’t it? Let’s be real, this is the most responsible thing I’ve done in awhile. Getting into the nitty gritty of the One Room Challenge can be reeeeeally boring, so here we go in week two!
Three Ways to Paint a Vaulted Ceiling
When you’re working in a room with a vaulted ceiling, there are three concepts to choose from…
- To add height to the room: Paint the side vaults the same color as the walls, so the eye doesn’t stop at the eight foot mark.
- To color drench the room: Paint the flat tray at the top of the ceiling the same color as the walls and vault.
- To separate walls from ceiling: Treat this like most rooms–the walls are one color, while the ceiling vault and flat tray are painted white.
Because I am planning to paint the walls very dark, I chose to go white with the ceiling tray and vaulted sides. It will make the top of the room feel airy and open, while the bottom is moody and cozy. The best way to decide for yourself is to scroll through photos to see which look appeals to you. There’s no right or wrong–only what YOU like.
The Before
The existing ceiling was painted with walls and vault in the same color–a soft grayish-blue, with the flat tray in a lighter color.
It wasn’t until I started painting the ceiling that I realized…the flat tray is peach. That 90s peach that I thought I had RID this house of–it’s still haunting me! I’m sorry if you love peach, but here’s the thing with a peach ceiling: After awhile, it just looks dirty. Bleh.
Handy Pail to the Rescue!
Yes, Handy Pail sends me stuff. They are really good to us DIYers. But here’s the thing–when I have to go buy more supplies, I stick to this brand. The products are awesome.
I raved during one of the challenges about their roller kit. (Which would be a great gift for anyone you know that just bought a house!) The painting tools are just really high quality, and they think about making projects easier with the sizes and innovative features of the products. And, let’s face it. I love their signature red.
The paint stir stick? It’s vented to make stirring paint easy. You just rinse it off. One of the things I love most? It has a paint key at the end! You can use it to open the paint can prior to stirring. So smart!
My Process
I edge the ceiling to start, and since I will be painting the walls a dark color, I didn’t have to worry about being messy. (Yay!) The vault adds extra edging to the project because you really have to get into those creases the way a roller won’t quite do. In a perfect world, you would edge all joints, then roll, then edge again, then roll.
What did I do? I edged the joint where the wall meets the ceiling, the vaulted side joints–only part way up, and then I decided to roll. Annnnnd you can see where the tray joints needed to also be edged. So I quit rolling and edged the top. In the end, I edged the top joints once, the side vault joints twice and for this ceiling, because it wasn’t white to start with, I edged a third time where the top of the wall meets the ceiling. I only rolled it twice. I’m hoping I’m done. It looks pretty good.
What’s Next?
I started planning the picture frame moulding designs and measurements. If you look close enough, you can see the lines I’ve drawn. That’s another blog post for another day. This content creation stuff takes a toll on the schedule, does it not? Head over to Instagram to see this week’s progress set to music. Of course I chose Opalite because I love TS’s reasoning that sometimes you have to make your own sunshine. And if I had to create an album called “The Life of a DIYer” it would definitely have a track about taking matters into your own hands.
