In my head, I’m singing the title of this post to the tune of “The Heat is On” by Glenn Frey because I’m so PUMPED about all we accomplished this weekend! (Side note: apparently that song was written the year I was born… oh the 80s 🙂
Number 1 accomplishment on the list? Finishing the beam in the dining room. The process was easy enough, just time consuming.
Here’s what we started with – raw wood, lots of gaps, lots of rough wood filler.
First thing Saturday morning, I started sanding down the beam for a nice smooth finish. We ran to Lowe’s and picked up some quick-dry, white silicone caulk. We chose the GE brand. It said it was paintable in 30 minutes, and the stuff lived up to its word. No complaints here!
Stephen got to work caulking the edges of the beam while I pulled out a can of the best primer ever, KILZ!
Here’s a close up of the beam, post caulk and primer.
We went ahead and caulked the trim around our dining room and kitchen windows while we were at it.
After we caulked and primed on Saturday, Stephen moved on to his garage project…
Turns out there was.
… while I tackled another trouble area in our house – our walk-in closet. More on this project to come!
We woke up bright and early Sunday morning ready to start back on the beam, and I prepared myself for the day of painting ahead of me. First I painted a nice thick coat of Valspar’s Betsy’s Linen white in a semi-gloss over the beam (and on the pre-primed window trim while I was at it).
I really can’t say enough about how much I love KILZ primer. That stuff covers so well, I only needed to do ONE coat of trim paint and we were done! (And no, I’m not being paid to say that.. although I wouldn’t mind being paid! Are you listening KILZ? 😉
Next, it was time for edging on one side of the beam with our kitchen wall color – Valspar’s Cincinnatian Hotel Carl Tan (weird name, huh?). I also touched up around the kitchen window at this point.
Third paint color for the day? The dining room side of the beam – Valspar’s Mocha Syrup. Why, oh why did we decide different paint colors in these two rooms was a good idea??? This was the darkest paint of the day by far, so it required 2 coats over the white primer and caulk that had made it onto our walls.
Here I am touching up the dining room trim.
Finally it was time to touch up the ceiling. When we scraped the popcorn off our ceilings in the dining room and kitchen, we primed and then painted them with this ceiling paint. I love that it goes on purple and dries white! It makes it so much easier to see where you’ve already painted and any spots you might have missed.
Can you see the purple?
At the end of the day Sunday, after 5 different cans of paint and 2 tubes of caulk, here is the finished beam!
And with our new curtains.
What do you think? I really want to share full pictures of the dining room and kitchen with you soon. We’ll see if I get a day where both rooms are clean at the same time! 🙂
