Mothers, Don't Let Your Daughters Grow Up to Be Princesses

Or, at least don't let them paint their rooms that way! When we first visited what would become Chateau Papillon, a couple of rooms stood out as testimony to the family's little girl in residence: fuchsia walls, lavender ceilings, and the whole nine yards of Disney's princess motif. Although I'm sure the decor worked quite well for the little girl, it wasn't going to stay when Beth and I began our renovations. One room would become our library, and the other my home office.



A consultation with the paint desk at Lowe's on how best to prime the walls and ceiling for repainting led to some "Maximum Color Hiding" primer plus a can of flat white ceiling paint; Home Depot provided the wall paints in a Virginia Tech maroon and a grey primer to go beneath it.

Let me tell you: priming walls is no fun at all. I put an entire gallon of that "maximum hiding" primer onto the small room's walls (my office is approximately 10' x 10') in two full coats and some additional touch-up, and you could STILL see the fuchsia shining through. Likewise, the ceiling was even less pleasant and took two coats of primer as well, leaving a hint of lavender showing, too.



The ceiling then took two more coats (four total!), this time of flat white ceiling paint. I think I removed all traces of purple, but it's tough to be sure. At any rate, nearly two gallons of white paint later, and the room was ready to get its new colors. Beth painted a coat of grey base to go beneath the Hokie maroon (recommended by Home Depot to help the maroon show up properly), then I followed that up with two full coats and some spot work in maroon paint.



Though the above photo shows the maroon paint in various stages of drying--and thus appearing fairly streaky and purple to boot--the end result does look good, and once I have the baseboard in place and the furniture arranged, I'll post a photo of the finished product. After painting, I put down a layer of bamboo flooring (full tongue-and-groove boards--no laminates!) and have cut, but not fully installed, baseboard; shoe moulding is going to be one more required touch to fully conceal the floor's edges. And, of course, I hung orange curtains...