Wood You Paint It?

This is always a difficult subject to approach in our household. Do we **gasp** PAINT over wood??? Since Jack is working from home today, I posed the question to him. His answer - "Depends". Yeah, that was helpful.

We faced this dilemma in our condo. The sunken living room has a beautiful vaulted ceiling covered in not-so-beautiful cedar planks. Rough cedar planks. It is mentioned in the original condominium specs as a "feature". Have I mentioned the condo was built in the 70s? The original finish was NOT in very good condition. I'm sorry that I do not have a "before" picture to show you; it was too horrific and there is always a chance small children may see this blog.

So here were our options:

1. Lightly sand and restain. Did I mention the ceiling is vaulted? Very, very vaulted?
2. Paint a feature colour.
3. Paint white.
4. Keep talking about it long enough to decide to move thus avoiding actual decision-making.

Number 4 was sounding pretty good to me, but I just couldn't face looking at that ugly ceiling that didn't match ANYTHING in the room.
So, onto Number 1A. Stain in a dark colour. Pros: Wood is beautiful and a dark stain would modernize the look. Cons: Room faces east and is quite dark.
Option 1B. Stain white. Pros: Cottagey, casual. Cons: Maybe a bit too casual for our look.
Both Options 1A and 1B would require either a professional painter and/or scaffolding. Husband is afraid of heights. I scoff at paying someone to do something I can do myself. I blame my parents for this flaw in my personality. Goodbye staining.
Option 2. Quickly rejected. This solution needed to be a long-term one. NOT gonna paint every time I want to change my living room furniture. Which is often. Another personality flaw.
Option 3 - Definite possibilities here. White is light, bright, would cover up most of the planks but leave enough of the texture to keep the ceiling a feature in this room.

So, (drum roll please) what did we end up doing?
Surprise! We painted the planks in the wall colour! Benjamin Moore Gentle Cream OC-96 in eggshell. It LOOKS white. Even compared to the walls! And we didn't even have to cut in! Bonus!

So HOW did we do it? We used a very fuzzy roller, designed for rough surfaces, a heavy-duty primer to block the (remaining) stain, a paintbrush duct-taped to an extender pole, an extension ladder, a step ladder and lots of drop sheets.

After one coat of the primer, it only took one coat of paint! Love you, Aura!

Here are some pictures:


Gotta love the "Macgyver-ed" brush.



More on that chocolate brown feature wall later.



And the finished product.

Love it. Will share the completely finished room when the room is, well, completely finished.


Nadine