Painting Our DIY Picture Frame Molding: Part II

The first part of our dining room transformation was complete with the coffered ceiling and picture frame molding on the walls. That left the fun part of the project: painting!

I will admit that I love to paint. Yes, the preparation time can be long and yes, the process is messy but this is the one home improvement project that I don't want to hire out too often. That being said, if you are not one to enjoy painting, here is a breakdown of the amount of time it took to complete, in case you are thinking of going down this home improvement project path.

Painting our DIY picture molding and walls

Prep time: 7 hours

Paint application time: 2 - 3 hours

Cleanup time: 1 hour

I'm not going to lie: the worst part about painting our diy picture frame molding t was the preparation time that was needed to meticulously tape up the room with plastic sheets so that the paint gun didn't leak paint out of the room. The more time you spend prepping, the happier you will be after the painting is done because you will not spend extra hours scrubbing your floors or worse, re-touching walls outside of your room with paint.

John and I spent 6 hours total over the course of 3 days ensuring that the baseboards, floor, windows, and door openings were completely sealed with painter's tape and plastic sheets. Even when we thought we were done, we would still go back the next day and find little air holes peeking through that required more painter's tape.

Once we were confident that the room was sealed, the ceiling was painted first with Valspar Signature Ceiling paint in white. The coffered ceiling was not completely painted when it was installed so a fresh coat of white was applied first. It also didn't matter that some of the white paint got on the walls. We were going to cover the walls next with a different paint color.

We let the ceiling dry for about 36 hours before we covered up the ceiling with plastic and painters tape. After all, we already spent about 6 hours prepping the floor and openings, so we needed to spend another hour ensuring that our freshly painted ceiling stayed intact.

Next, the walls were painted with Valspar Mountain River (eggshell finish) on both the walls and the picture frame molding. I knew that I wanted the walls all one color and was not worried that the picture frame molding would get lost. John used a paint gun for the walls but we did have to go back with a roller and paint brushes to go over areas that the paint gun missed, mostly around the picture frame molding.

I was incredibly happy with the results and cannot wait until our dining room table and chairs come in for us to use this room the way it's intended.