Modern Coastal Powder Room: WK 4

Patch, repair, and painting this One Room Challenge week!

This week we will talk about installing board and batten, finishing trim work, and painting all of the surfaces. What went well and what didn’t. 

Can you believe we are in week 4 of this 6 week design challenge? Time flies and I know next week is critical!

If you missed the previous weeks, they are linked here WEEK 1 Before Pictures, WEEK 2 Products and Design, WEEK 3 Renovation

Check out the amazing One Room Challenge™ designs from both the featured designers and guests by clicking here! 

Post contains hand selected products, with affiliate marketing links throughout {full disclosure here} 

The Devil is in the Details

Seriously, after all of the troubles I had during my spring ORC I thought I had planned this powder room makeover to perfection and wouldn’t run into any issues. 

Wrong! My contractor was good at many things, but not at finishing or detail work. More on that later… Plus I faced challenges in painting. What? Not what I expected. 

The good news is my contractor cleared out the room removing the toilet and vanity, so the wall paint was as easy as it could be. I’ll count that blessing!

Shop the Plan

Beautiful Paint Colors

One thing that I’ve been so happy with are the paint color selections. I decided to use the Behr Paint 2019 Color of the Year Blueprint and wow is it gorgeous!

Thanks to Behr for supplying the paint for this project! All Behr products can be purchased at the Home Depot. 

It’s the most beautiful coastal shade as shown below. Blending it with a bright white and nice grayed neutral is giving me the Modern Coastal look I craved. 

This past weekend, I put on some tunes and knocked out the wall paint.

Can you believe the transformation? If you need a reminder, here is the before color.  All I can say is wow!

Powder Room Board and Batten

Luckily, my contractor was good at mapping out the board and batten trim in a very small space. AND he figured out how to make it work around a vanity that was up against a wall.

Did you know I have a lot of caulk knowledge, in addition to my paint knowledge. Crazy right?

A long time ago, I worked at GE Sealants & Adhesives for about 4 years. So yes, caulk is my jam too! After seeing people caulk and paint as professionals for many years, I’d say my opinion of my contractor not being good at finishing is coming from real experience.

Even my own caulking abilities are pretty darn good and I don’t do this every day. I am still feeling proud of the silicone caulk application on my recent exterior light update!

My contractor’s C level of detail work left me with having to set nails, spackle, sand, and caulk to clean up the joints. Set nails? A new skill I learned and I have to say it’s pretty fun! 

Why was it important to do all that I did? To create a smooth finish for painting. If you have finishing nails poking through the boards, the paint won’t adhere. If their are any blemishes, there is no amount of paint that can fill a hole or gap between boards.

So I worked many nights filling, letting it dry, and sanding to get it as smooth as I could before painting with white paint. 

Did you know baby wipes are the BEST way to clean up paint spills and wipe your hands during painting. Plus I found them handy in removing spackle and caulk too, without ruining the finish on my nail polish 😉

Painting the Trim

HANDy Paint Products company was generous and sent some of their pails for painting. I LOVED how easy it made the job.

What I loved:

• Liner for easy clean up
• Magnet to hold my brush
• Lightweight
• Comfortable to hold for long periods of time

I didn’t have to keep going back to a paint tray or paint can to load my brush. The pail, paint and brush traveled with me saving time!

Mick (always my keeper) made sure I was going a good job painting!

Pin It for Later!

Rest in Peace Airless Paint Sprayer

If you’ve followed me before, I LOVE my Wagner Studio Pro painter and now have WORN IT OUT! I used it for so many projects that this last one finally did it in!

It was great my contractor pulled out the vanity and put it in the garage. I thought the cabinet primer and paint was going to be the easy part of this makeover.

Best laid plans right?

What you cannot tell from this picture is the sprayer was spitting out CLUMPS of primer. They are so big that I can’t sand them out. Luckily, I am applying a faux finish so maybe those glops will create character?

After, cleaning the applicator, thinning the primer, checking connections I gave up as the sprayer continued to sputter and spew versus spray. The smooth finish I was expecting didn’t happen.

Pretty much I got REALLY mad after wasting hours trying to get it to spray a fine mist like before that I dropped the whole thing in the trash.

RIP my old friend. I will buy a new one because it served me well!

The vanity is now painted and I’m trying to craft a faux blonde oak or will use a driftwood finish I’ve used in my past. I’ll be practicing on a board first and share the plan next week! I’m trying to create a look similar to this vanity.

Wish me luck! It’s making me very nervous that I won’t get the look I crave. 

Track My Progress

Come back next week to see if I’ve found the right finish for the vanity and found the right accessories to bring together that Modern Coastal Style.

 Week 5, REVEAL

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Until next time…

Porch Daydreamer

Tracey