Slowly but surely we are working on painting the trim in our house. It’s such an overwhelming task that we decided that this year we would start on small areas and just do that zone before moving on to the next zone.
Here’s our list of zones that we have already done:
- kitchen
- first floor hallway
- dining room
- laundry room
- office
- first floor bathroom
- office bathroom
- Will’s room
- Weston’s room
- Kid’s bathroom
And here’s the zones we still need to tackle:
- living room
- reading room
- foyer
- stairway
- upstairs hall
- guest bedroom
- guest bathroom
- master bedroom
- sitting room
- master bathroom
- Will’s sink room and closet
- Weston’s sink room and closet
- play nook
And that doesn’t include the basement or the fact that ALL the ceilings need painted. See what I mean about overwhelming? It’s like assisting the birth of an elephant….you are excited when it’s finally over and you haven’t been crushed alive.
So the next zone on our list was to do the upstairs hallway…
That’s an original-when-we-moved-in shot!
Here’s the view from our master bedroom. The hall leads from the stairs to our room and the boys rooms. I wasn’t planning on tackling the other end of the hall…that would put me over the edge.
The little landing area right across from our bedroom doors has gotten a quickie update (nothing that is permanent)…from the before…
to the after:
And now that the hall has been painted and the trim has gotten a few coats of white, here is the current look:
As you can see, I turned the cubbies sideways and I think it feels much more organic….plus everything is way more fresh and clean with the new paint. I’m always so astounded with how drastic the white trim really is. I love the bright white look and the cream colored trim just doesn’t do it for me.
We get the question really often about how we paint it. The process is pretty simple and very bullet-point friendly so here we go:
- wipe down all the trim with deglosser (the biggest and most inexpensive can of deglosser available at Lowe’s is what we use)
- paint all the trim with a coat of primer (we’ve used all of them…our favorites are Zinnsser and Kilz)
- paint all the trim with at least three coats of paint (bright white untinted paint in semi-gloss – it’s sometimes called brilliant white or brightest white)
After the trim is done, I paint the walls and Jeremy usually tackles the ceiling (he obviously hasn’t done that yet here – #kendallyouhadonejob) and then we change out the electrical outlets and switches to bright white (he has done that but it’s not pictured).
I was a little nervous that the animal print runner would look weird in the hall after we painted but it still looks fine to me. I got it online at RugsUSA during one of their sales and I’m thinking it might look good in the living room after it’s painted 🙂
The wall color is the exact same one we used in the downstairs hall. It’s Stingray by Benjamin Moore in eggshell finish.
I was so excited about finishing this area that I went out and got my Maxxinista on. I got this cute little tiled tray in the clearance section for $9. It looks great with my very low maintenance plant (yes, it’s fake…very very fake). I also plopped a little piggy bank on here as this is a catchall for things that get stuck in the boy’s pockets before the clothing gets tossed in the hamper.
So excited to check that one off the list. Putting the hall in halleluiah! Next Jer and I are talking about tackling the staircase ::DAUNTING:: and then comes the living room (two stories!!!). We shall see how that all turns out!
Not sure how I have yet to notice how a-maz-ing the crown is in your house!! Holy mackerel – that’s some legit stuff!! 😀 The hallway looks great!
Love the growth chart! Was that a DIY? If so, how? If not, where is it from? The hallway looks fab!
Looks great! I hear you about the daunting job of painting trim – we have to redo all the trim in our house too, and we haven’t even started. It’s all oil-based almond color that we want to whiten-ize. Glad to hear that someone else is doing it in stages – I think that will be our method too!
Love how just a little change can make all the difference!
Liz @ http://www.shoppingmycloset.com
Looking good! We’re tackling our two story living room later this Summer. I can’t wait…for it be over.
Looks great, Katie! Where did you get the cubbies and fabric storage containers? I am looking for some just like yours. 🙂
It looks so fresh now! I love the cubby in the hall!
Looks nice! Just keep truckin’ on 🙂
The cubby shelf unit is from Ikea and the fabric storage boxes are from Target 🙂
xo kb
Looks fantastic! It is always amazing what a coat of white paint can do.
Oh another note, can you share where you purchased the hampers? I have been looking for something nice enough to be stored in the hallway with no luck.
Love white white trim, too! Your hallway styling looks great, too : ]
Looks good! I’m always surprised at how much you and Sherry use primer. HGTV Magazine just confirmed what I’d always thought– there are very few cases where it’s really needed. I guess Sherry’s blue trim was going to need something heavier but I wouldn’t think you’d need it for cream-to-white. Or was the cream done in a slick oil base or something?
I have a question about the “deglosser” step. Is it just a wipe down with the deglosser and start painting or do you have to wipe down with a clean or wet rag again after wiping with the deglosser? I’ve just never known about that step. I only tried it once and wasn’t real sure about what I was doing.
We just bought a house with lots and lots of dark cream trim. Not sure how I didn’t notice it before we made an offer! All of our walls are a tan color, along with the ceilings. It makes the house look so dark inside. I really want to paint all the trim white…not sure my husband is going to be ok with it though!! We have around 30 doors to paint too. Might have to buy a paint sprayer!!
What a daunting project, but what a gorgeous return on all of that work! Your trimwork is so beautifully chunky and gorgeous, I love it! Is it me, or does it look almost peachy in your before pictures? What a difference! Have you ever thought of spraying it in an effort to speed up the process, or would that be more trouble than what it’s worth in terms of prep?
Great job! Oh, the feeling when you lighten/freshen things up with paint. 🙂 (It’s almost enough to push you to paint everything else. Almost.) Good luck, especially with those next spaces!
Wow that’s a lot of trim to paint! But at least it’s already up there and you don’t have to install any of it… looks great!
Looks amazing! Question: is that an alternative spelling for Hallelujah? I’ve never seen it before! Maybe I’m just out of the praise the Lord spelling game. 🙂
Target!
xo kb
Looks great. Just finished the paint job in our bedroom and it’s incredible what a difference cream to white makes! So much lighter and airier.
Interested to know where you stoppped and started the new paint job…do the joins look weird?? I have a tiny transportable Australian house that needs the trims done in white, but it seems like a HUGE job, purely because there’s no start and stop!
PS, I ADORE the stingray colour…great choice!
Hallway looks great! I like the animal print rug too!
Love the growth chart! Did you make it? I must do one before my little man turns 3!
Whats the reason behind hampers in the Hallway as opposed to rooms/bathrooms?
Sorry if it has been mentioned before.
I desperately need to start painting the trim white in our home! I didn’t realize how yellow everything was till I added some pure white… Oh and we’re switching out all the of the outlets and light switches too. SOO much better in pure white!
Hi Katie! Need some advice…my husband is finally ok with introducing our son (who is 3) into the church. He struggled with religion so it took him a while to open up to the idea. Do you have any tips for helping introduce my son? Any books or Sunday school tips? Please let me know 🙂
We explained it in this post but in short…there were just too many hampers. They were all partially filled which added up to a whole lot of laundry. So we simplified for a faster laundry process.
xo – kb
Yes! It’s super easy! Here’s the post about it.
xo – kb
We generally stop at corners so it doesn’t look weird.
xo – kb
There are so many different ways to pick a church and I always say for our family that we choose churches based on two things – accurate theology and opportunities to serve. When it comes to the little ones – you can make the experience a little easier by connecting with someone else at the church so he has a friend there before he is in any sunday school class.
xo – kb
I’m a terrible speller so I actually used spell check on that one. I have no idea what is correct.
xo – kb
It is kinda peachy tan. And we have sprayed in some rooms…but since this area is accessed frequently throughout the day, spraying wasn’t really an option.
xo – kb
Just wipe down with deglosser 🙂
xo – kb
Our trim is super slick which is why we use it. Plus, I find that the “primer+paint” paint generally requires just as many coats as a separate primer and paint but is more expensive in the long run.
xo – kb
It was a DIY project! Here is the post about it.
xo – kb
Wow. I’m seriously under-utilizing the space in my hall! It looks terrific.
I saw this today and thought it’d make you laugh. As the mother of 2 boys, it definitely made me chuckle!
http://www.fightingfrumpy.com/2014/05/ten-boy-mom-musts.html?m=1
Love the color of the walls in the hallway. Stingray by BM is also one of my favorites. In the last picture (the one with the frame) the wall color looks darker? Is that also Stingray or another shade (can’t tell if it’s just the lighting)?
Your trim looks great! We just painted out all our trim and doors on the main level of our home…they were the orangey stained kind circa 1990’s but are now a brilliant white…it is a big job but definitely worth it in the end. Congrats on getting some of your done!
Thanks for this post. After pulling the carpet off my stairs and re-doing them, I kept looking at the trim thinking it was too cream and I wanted white. I have been thinking about repainting the baseboards for 6 months. You have just given me the inspiration to tackle this job. I know this is a long comment, but have to let you know… we did a remodel last year and had our contractor install hardwood floors throughout the first floor. I kept looking at our baseboards for the past year wondering why they looked so awful and dirty and also wondered why they wouldn’t clean up very well. I just realized this past weekend, the contractor put the baseboards back on upside down! 🙂
OH NO! Can you flip them? Are they salvageable?
xo – kb
It’s just the lighting 🙂 This area gets very little natural light so it’s hard to photograph 🙁
xo – kb
I know lots of people are asking you similar questions…so I just want to be certain. We have cream (BM Navajo White) woodwork in a semi-gloss that I want to repaint a crisp white. Can I go straight to the can of white, or do you think I need to prime and/or degloss first? I am going to go with the same semi-gloss BM finish, just more white. Love your house!
Looks like a huge project, much bigger than our attempt to transform the yard to something at least a bit nice… Our main “task” for the next month is to finish our swimming pool what is something pretty close to my heart… It was supposed to be inspired by this quite luxurious style, but since we are making it by ourselves (well, especially my husband), and we are really not experts in this field (even if he is a handyman), it will be of course much simpler and not that imposing, but it’s still a long process… I can really share all your feelings about these “home improvement difficulties”, but I feel it’s totally worth it… 🙂
HOLY COW. That is all.
xo – kb
It never hurts to go with a deglosser first or a primer. I think out of laziness I would probably skip the primer step if I were you and just go straight from current trim to deglosser to a paint with a built-in primer (since your colors are so close and it sounds like you might have water based paint already on your trim). Hope this helps!
xo- kb