After drywall came painting. And by “painting,” I mean painting literally everything in the entire house. Every wall. Every ceiling. Every piece of trim. Every window interior. Every door. All 27-28 of them. Both sides.
Jennifer and I decided to do all the painting ourselves to save money. This seemed like a reasonable decision at the time.
It was not a reasonable decision.
The Scope (Or: What Were We Thinking?)
Let me paint the picture (pun intended) of exactly what we committed to painting:
Walls and Ceilings: – Entire 2,000+ square foot house – Living room, dining room, kitchen, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, hallways, closets, attic – Two coats on everything
Trim: – All the raw poplar trim that came with the Connor Homes kit – Baseboards, door casings, window casings – 16-foot pieces (some of them) – Had to prime AND paint everything
Doors: – 27-28 interior doors – Both sides of each door – Had to figure out how to paint both sides without ruining the wet finish
Window Interiors: – 27-29 windows (depending on how you count) – All came primed but needed finish coats – Exterior was aluminum clad (thank god), so we only had to do interiors
Kitchen Cabinets: – All unfinished cabinets – Doors, frames, shelves – Multiple coats
Bathrooms: – Different colors from the rest of the house – Wainscoting
Looking back, this was insane. This is months of work for professional painters. We were doing it on weekends while still living elsewhere and working in the city during the week.
The Paint Choices
We made different choices for exterior and interior based on durability needs:
Exterior: We used Sherwin Williams from the beginning. The exterior takes a beating from weather, UV, temperature swings — we wanted paint that would last. The HardiBoard siding came prefinished (a huge win), but any exterior trim got Sherwin Williams.
Interior: We went with Behr paint from Home Depot. Why Behr? Honestly, I think the lighting was warmer in Home Depot and Behr seemed like a better brand than Valspar. They’re probably the same. But we ended up with Behr.
- Walls: Behr Fragrant Jasmine in eggshell
- Ceilings: Same color in flat
- Trim: Behr Decorator White in semi-gloss
The plan was to paint almost everything the same color initially to keep things simple. We’d only do the bathrooms differently to start. Kids’ rooms could be painted different colors later (and they were, using Benjamin Moore, which we switched to after realizing better paint matters).
We bought paint in 5-gallon buckets. I think we went through five or six 5-gallon buckets of the Fragrant Jasmine for walls and ceilings. The trim paint I’m less sure about — maybe 3 gallons? Maybe 5? I honestly don’t remember.
The Sprayer Saga (Part 1: Borrowed Equipment)
My friend the builder had a professional paint sprayer. He offered to let me borrow it to make the job easier.
This was generous of him. It was also the beginning of a very frustrating relationship with paint spraying equipment.
I had never used a paint sprayer before. I didn’t know what I was doing. And professional sprayers are not intuitive pieces of equipment.
The Problems: – Getting it primed was a nightmare – Every time it sat, it would unprime – I’d spend an hour just trying to get the damn thing working – Once it worked, I wasn’t good at controlling it – Uneven coverage, drips, overspray
I know this was operator error. I know it was human error. Obviously mistakes are made whenever I do anything, and they were definitely made here. But I really, really struggled with that sprayer.
The Process: When I finally got it working, I’d spray the walls and then back-roll to make sure the coverage was even. I used a piece of cardboard or plastic to try to keep the ceiling separate from the walls at the edges.
The windows were still taped over from the spray foam installation, which was helpful — one less thing to mask. The floors weren’t finished yet, so I could just spray without worrying about drips.
In terms of actually getting paint on walls, the sprayer did work. It was faster than rolling by hand. But the setup time, the priming struggles, the cleanup — I’m not convinced it actually saved time overall.
The Sprayer Saga (Part 2: Maybe It’s Broken?)
After struggling with the borrowed sprayer for several weekends, I started to think maybe it was broken. It wasn’t a new sprayer. Maybe something was wrong with it that I didn’t understand.
So I tried to find replacement parts. And then I thought, you know what, maybe I should just buy my own sprayer. Then I’ll know it works properly, and I won’t have to worry about returning a broken one to my friend.
I bought my own paint sprayer.
Did this solve the problem? Sort of. I had fewer issues with the new sprayer. But I also had more practice by that point, so maybe I just got better at it. Hard to say.
I did end up buying replacement parts for my friend’s sprayer too, because I thought maybe I’d broken it. Whether that fixed it or not, I don’t know. I had my own by then.
The Trim Painting Nightmare
The trim was its own special kind of hell.
All the trim that came with the house kit was raw poplar. Not primed. Raw wood. So I had to prime everything, then paint everything.
By the time I was doing trim, it was warming up outside, so I set up these giant spray stations in the yard to handle the 16-foot trim pieces.
The Process: 1. Spray primer on all sides 2. Let dry 3. Try not to get drips on the edges (fail at this repeatedly) 4. Paint by hand with a brush because Jennifer wanted brush marks, not a factory finish 5. More drips on edges because you have to stand pieces on edge to paint the other edge 6. Paint all the flat parts (easy) 7. Paint all the edges (terrible) 8. Repeat for roughly one million pieces of trim
I don’t know how many pieces of trim I painted. Too many. Way too many.
The Doors: Then there were the doors. 27-28 interior doors. Each one has two sides.
The doors came primed, which was helpful. But painting them was its own logistical puzzle.
The problem: you paint one side, flip it over to paint the other side, set it on sawhorses, and you’ve just messed up the wet finish from the first side.
I had to figure out some system for painting both sides without ruining either side. I honestly don’t remember what I came up with. I just remember it being tedious and annoying and taking forever.
The Window Interiors: And the windows. All 27-29 window interiors needed painting. They came primed, but primed isn’t finished. At least the exteriors were aluminum clad, so I didn’t have to paint those.
Jennifer helped with all of this. It wasn’t just me painting alone. She did a lot of the work, including the kitchen cabinets, which she did a nice job on (even though the materials we chose doomed them to failure, which I’ll get to).
The Kitchen Cabinet Disaster
Here’s where we made a critical mistake that would haunt us for years.
We primed the kitchen cabinets with Kilz primer. Then we painted them with regular latex paint in a dark bluish-gray color.
Kilz primer is fine for walls. It’s not fine for cabinets, especially when combined with regular latex paint.
What Happened: The cabinets never fully dried. They stayed sticky. Forever.
I think part of the problem was that the house was still full of moisture from the spray foam, the drywall mud, and now all the paint. Everything was damp. Nothing was drying properly.
But the bigger problem was using the wrong products. Regular latex paint with Kilz primer is not meant for cabinets. Cabinets need cabinet paint — specific paint designed to cure harder and handle the wear and tear of being opened and closed constantly.
We didn’t know this. So we used what we had.
The Fix Attempts: We tried painting polyurethane over the latex to seal it and create a hard surface. Didn’t work. Still sticky.
We lived with sticky cabinet shelves for years. Everything that sat on the shelves would stick slightly. You’d pick up a glass and feel that slight resistance, that tacky feeling.
It was maddening.
The Eventual Solution: Recently — fifteen years later — I repainted all the kitchen cabinets using Behr Cabinet and Trim paint. This is actual cabinet paint designed for this application.
Why Behr? Because I needed to match the original color, and matching the Behr color with Behr paint was easier than trying to color-match with Benjamin Moore or Sherwin Williams and then repainting the entire house to make everything match.
The new paint is great. The cabinets are finally not sticky. It only took fifteen years.
The Lesson: Cabinet paint exists for a reason. Use it. Don’t use regular latex paint on cabinets. Don’t use Kilz primer on cabinets. Just buy the right product from the beginning.
Also, I painted all the doors in the house at the same time with the Behr Cabinet and Trim paint. They’re beautiful. They should have been painted with this from day one.
The Moisture Problem (Part 3)
Remember the moisture issues from spray foam installation? And from drywall taping?
Well, painting added even more moisture to the house.
We were painting in early spring. It was still cold. I couldn’t keep the windows open for ventilation. And I didn’t run a dehumidifier because I still wasn’t thinking about moisture management.
So all that water vapor from the paint just sat there in the house, adding to the already-saturated environment.
This contributed to the cabinet paint not drying. It probably contributed to other finishes not curing properly. It definitely made the house feel damp and uncomfortable.
What I Should Have Done: Run multiple dehumidifiers continuously while painting and for weeks after. Monitor humidity levels. Ventilate as much as possible even in cold weather.
What I Actually Did: Nothing. Just painted and hoped for the best.
I’m noticing a pattern here.
The Timeline
Painting took forever. Like, months of weekends.
- Walls and ceilings: 2-3 weekends of spraying (plus all the time fighting with the sprayer)
- Trim: countless weekends of priming, painting, letting things dry, painting again
- Doors: more weekends
- Cabinets: more weekends
- Bathrooms: another 2-3 weekends after everything else was up
It wasn’t all stacked together consecutively. Some things had to wait for other work to be done. We painted the walls first. Then the wainscoting went up in bathrooms and we painted that. The trim got painted before installation so we’d only have to touch up nail holes and caulk joints after installation.
Overall, painting probably took two to three months of weekend work spread across the spring.
What We Got Right
1. Sherwin Williams for Exterior This was smart. Quality paint on the exterior has held up well over fifteen years.
2. Doing It All the Same Color Initially Keeping it simple at the beginning meant we could just focus on getting paint on surfaces without worrying about multiple colors, complex masking, or making mistakes with color transitions.
3. Jennifer’s Brush Mark Aesthetic She wanted the hand-painted look, not a factory finish. It looks good. It gives the trim character. And it meant we didn’t have to achieve perfect sprayer technique.
4. Switching to Better Paint Later When we did the kids’ bedrooms, touch-up work, and built-ins later, we switched to Benjamin Moore. We learned. We got better paint for important applications.
5. Eventually Using Cabinet Paint Fifteen years late, but we got there.
What We Got Wrong
1. The Sprayer Learning Curve I should have practiced with the sprayer on scrap material first. Or watched some videos. Or hired someone who knew what they were doing.
2. Wrong Paint for Cabinets This is the big one. Kilz + regular latex = disaster. Cabinet paint exists for a reason.
3. Moisture Management Again. Still. Always. Should have run dehumidifiers.
4. Priming the Cabinets White We were painting them dark bluish-gray. Why did I prime them white? That’s just extra coats for no reason. Should have used gray primer.
5. Underestimating the Scope We thought we could bang this out in a few weekends. It took months. We should have budgeted more time or hired professionals for at least some of it.
Would I Do It Again?
Parts of it, yes. Parts of it, absolutely not.
Would DIY Again: – Walls and ceilings with a sprayer (now that I know how to use one) – Simple trim painting – Touch-up work and small projects
Would Hire Out: – Kitchen cabinets (just hire a cabinet painter, seriously) – Exterior trim (working at height with paint is miserable) – Anything requiring perfect finish quality
Would Never Do Again: – Paint 27-28 doors by hand – Prime and paint raw trim for an entire house – Use the wrong paint for cabinets and hope for the best
The paint sprayer title of this post is a bit of a lie. I would use a paint sprayer again. I own one now. I’ve gotten better at using it. It’s a useful tool.
But I’d use it for the right applications. And I’d know what I was doing. And I wouldn’t borrow someone else’s professional equipment without understanding how to maintain it properly.
The Paint Brand Evolution
Here’s how our paint choices evolved over time:
Build (2010): – Exterior: Sherwin Williams – Interior: Behr
Kids’ Rooms (A Few Years Later): – Benjamin Moore (learned that better paint matters)
Touch-Up and Built-Ins: – Benjamin Moore
Cabinet Repaint (2024): – Behr Cabinet and Trim Paint (to match original color without repainting entire house)
The lesson: start with good paint, or you’ll end up repainting with good paint later anyway.
Overall Assessment
Painting the house ourselves saved money. Probably thousands of dollars. But it cost months of weekends and resulted in some suboptimal outcomes (sticky cabinets for fifteen years).
The quality is… fine. It’s not professional quality. You can see brush marks (intentional), slight imperfections in coverage (not intentional), and areas where I clearly got better at spraying as I went (also not intentional).
But it’s our work. We did it. And there’s something satisfying about that, even when the cabinets are sticky.
Grade: B-
We got it done. The house got painted. It looks good from a distance and acceptable up close. We saved money. We learned a lot.
But the cabinet disaster, the sprayer struggles, the moisture issues, and the sheer amount of time it took keep this from being a higher grade.
If we were doing it again, we’d hire out more of it. We’d use the right paint for each application from the start. We’d run dehumidifiers. And we’d probably still struggle with the paint sprayer, because apparently that’s just part of the experience.
But hey, at least the windows were already taped.
Next up: Part 15 – Flooring (Wide Plank Pine Dreams vs. Reality)
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