Things I Learned About Painting From Priming One Closet

1) If you have a closet that you need to prime, do that first. Painting takes strategy and practice, and if you fuck this up no one will know. Not that I'd know firsthand or anything.

2) Wear clothes you really, really don't care about. It's not a question of whether you will get paint on yourself, just a question of when and how much. I currently have paint on the back of my heel, hands, elbows, and butt and all I've done so far is a closet.

3) Read about what you're doing before you do it. I just spent about a half hour washing out my roller in the sink, when I could have done things to shorten that time and minimize the amount of paint I put into the water system.

4) Again, wtf isn't there a totally comprehensive and useful guide to this somewhere? Everything I've seen is really abbreviated or leaves out crucial details.

5) Having someone else around, even if they aren't helping, probably makes this process less tiring. Or a book on tape.

6) Get more paint on the roller than you think you will need.

7) Take your time. Really. It's a lot easier to not mess up in the first place than it is to try to fix it. But keep a wet edge. Again, practice and strategy.

8) Mantra: cut in, roll, cut in, roll. I keep forgetting to cut in.

Final pre-paint stages

Choosing paint colors was pretty tough, but I finally settled on colors for the bedroom and living room. For the living room, I bought three of those tester boards and painted them various shades of taupe and taped them to different walls. They're not kidding when they say to look at the paint samples on different surfaces in different lighting conditions. Those colors changed a LOT when you go from wall to wall, or lit to shadow. I picked out a medium grey for the window wall, and custom mixed a light grey for the other wall.

In the bedroom, I had to design around a pinky-orange carpet and dark wood bedframe. I wanted to keep it light since the room doesn't get much sunlight after noon. I didn't do the two-step sample-painting process for the bedroom, I just held the paint chips up to my face, used my imagination, and went with my gut. There were a couple of lighter yellows that would have been nice, but they seemed overbearingly yellow. I liked a light, desaturated yellow, the obnoxiously named "America's Heartland". I'm shooting for "bright and cheery" without a "YELLOW YELLOW YELLOW" feeling. I can always make it darker or richer later if I want to.

I also bought primer, trays, rollers, and a dropcloth. I borrowed spackle and need to go find some sandpaper and a stool, and then I'm getting started. I'm going to start low-commitment with primering the closet to get used to this whole process. This has been a huge mental block and I really just want to get it over with so I can finish moving in.