“I’m Blue Da Ba Dee Dabba Da-eeeeee” (anyone remember that song?). Picture us maniacally singing it while priming and painting trim for days. We’re slowly losing our minds, but we’re having fun doing it. If you want to hum along vicariously, go ahead — it makes the process feel less solo and a little less certifiable.
When we last checked in, the foyer was sporting some snazzy blue trim.
We had stripped all the wallpaper and removed two closet doors and the bathroom door so we could take them out to the garage and use a paint sprayer to apply a coat of primer and two coats of white semi-gloss paint.
We find a paint sprayer is a huge help in a couple of scenarios:
- When you can remove something and lay or lean it on a drop cloth and spray it — doors, cabinet doors, or lengths of molding before installation.
- When you don’t have many adjacent rooms or floors to tape off — for example, when carpeting has been removed and you can spray trim and doors without worrying about overspray landing on floors.
We still prefer to roll walls and ceilings; the sprayer is best for trim, doors, cabinets, and furniture. Think of it like this: you wouldn’t spray paint entire walls in most cases, but cabinets, doors, and furniture benefit from the smooth, even finish a sprayer provides.
Here are the pros we experienced with our sprayer:
- Great coverage — paint goes on thicker and smoother than with a brush or roller, so you often get a faster, more even finished result.
- No thinning required — some sprayers need you to dilute the paint, but our model handled straight-from-the-can paint, which made the process easier.
And the cons:
- Overspray is inevitable — it’s not as contained as a roller or brush, so paint can drift onto surrounding surfaces (you can see paint on the drop cloth behind the doors from overspray).
- Technique matters — you must learn to move the sprayer evenly and not hold it too close, or you’ll get drips. Mastering speed and distance takes practice.
With the doors in the garage being primed and painted with the sprayer, we tackled the rest of the foyer trim by hand.
The reason we didn’t remove all the trim and spray it in the garage is practical: taking out and reinstalling baseboards, chair rail, crown molding, and trim around seven doorways would have taken forever. We also considered taping off the entire foyer and spraying in place, but the foyer opens to the kitchen, dining room, office, two closets, a portico, and a bathroom — taping all of that off to protect against overspray would have been a monumental task.
So we primed and primed — two coats of primer on all the blue baseboard, trim, chair rail, and crown — then followed with paint. If you have glossy or shiny wood trim, rough it up with sandpaper and wipe it down with a liquid deglosser before priming and painting; if you’re working with raw wood, use a stain-blocking primer. Our trim was chalky and matte paint, so we were able to skip sanding and deglossing and move straight to primer and semi-gloss paint.
How many coats you’ll need depends on the starting color. In our case we did four coats total: two coats of primer followed by two coats of paint. We used a crisp semi-gloss white for the trim and doors to match the rest of the house, which helped brighten the space considerably.
Once everything was dry we rehung the doors with new knobs that match the ones we installed upstairs.
We still haven’t painted the back of the front door to match the teal color used on the exterior, and we’re planning to refinish the stair railing and paint the spindles white at some point. Even so, the foyer already feels much lighter and more open than it did when we inherited it with blue trim and wallpaper everywhere.
Here’s a before picture from the other side, and a now shot showing the white trim and doors. It’s interesting how the slate flooring reads less blue now that the reflective blue trim is gone; it still has cool undertones, but the room feels more neutral and balanced without the strong blue reflections.
The stairs still need some attention, but overall the foyer is inching toward a fresher, cleaner look. We can’t wait to tackle the yellowed walls next.
And if you worry we might be done with blue trim, rest assured: blue is still present in our office and dining room, both of which have window trim, baseboards, crown molding, and in the dining room, a blue chair rail and built-ins. There’s a good chance you’ll read about us painting more blue trim in the months to come — while we quietly sob into our paint brushes.
Even so, the glossy white finish makes us really happy. The things we do for love.
Psst — in family news, we celebrated the Fourth of July and marked our sixth anniversary with small, memorable gatherings.