The Painting Begins

 Its starting to feel like every step we take forward seems to be momentous and not to be taken for granted. Things like finishing the shingles and putting the interior walls up are  HUGE events. And now the next big event is in progress. PAINTING! This is the moment where this wooden structure that we've been spending months on begins to take life from the inside out. It's also the moment where some big decisions have to be made. What color is the house going to be?? Personally I like for this decision process to take a little time. Find some colors, sit with them for a little while, mix and match, perhaps sleep with them under your pillow to see which one resonates the best. Okay maybe putting them under your pillow is a bit far, but I think you get my drift. I was a bit taken back when I found painting time was already here and we were to pick our colors today so we could paint by tomorrow. Some people like to make decisions far faster then others. Although I have to say it's really good we have someone our team that likes to get things in a timely manner. Because if it was up to me we'd probably still be deciding on color until the end of the month and maybe into January. The whole process went quickly, I kind of think we were divinely guided in our selection process. It couldn't have taken more then 20 minutes. Not bad considering we had a completely BLANK slate to start from or at least so we thought. We've decided to go with a nature-driven and calming tone for our tiny house, with what I would consider neutral to warm tones. You'll see the colors in later pictures. When we went color shopping we thought we had a totally blank slate, until we got home with our new colors and realized our wood stove is a bit of an eye catcher and the right colors would be very important to prevent clashing

. Out of all the colors in the world we could have picked, we picked the perfect colors to bring out the stove! Was that by chance? I like to think not! 

One of our biggest concerns about painting was not so much the color but how to do the texturing. Typical drywall texture is expensive and a bit of pain to use, not mention it's heavy. We didn't really want to go that route. So with a little bit of YouTube education and online research we found something called Tissue Paper Texture. It's exactly as it sounds. You use tissue paper as your wall texture. There's a more detailed explanation of this further down in the blog. The final result is amazing. Its very professional looking and can actually be made to look just like sand stone. So far we are really happy with the results.

As of now we have all of the lower walls done and will moving forward to the ceiling soon.

The first stir of primer

 

Don't Forget the Details!

It's time for some tissue paper fun. 

GET READY TO CRUMPLE!!!

Thanks to the lovely holiday season we found a great deal on tissue paper at costco. 400 sheets for only $6. Now that's cheap texturing! We took an evening to pre-crumple. land tear off the edges of all the tissue paper so it was ready at hand when we needed. This ended up saving us a lot of time. So with  a cup of tea, a documentary, and some tissue paper we had a great evening of crumpling

....Tissue Un-crumpled

Tissue All Crumpled

Lets Paint!

The exciting moment where the pain can gets opened!

ahhh.... look at that lovely color

     Here's hows the tissue texture works. You paint a tissue paper size section on the wall.  As shown on the picture to the left.  Then take a single sheet of white tissue paper crumple it into a ball, then uncrumple it and place flat on the pre-painted section and once again paint over it, being careful you don't have to much pain or you will end up with a big goopy mess. Also pay attention to the amount of pressure you are using  being careful not to tear or break the tissue paper. It's best to initially roll away from tissue paper making sure the edges and corners are secure. Repeat  this process until your wall is covered.

Its best to cut around outlets and windows shortly after painting them,
so the paint is still a little damp and you can peel
 the tissue using the the edges of the outlet or window seal. This allows you to see
if you missed any edges

It's important to have the tissue paper relatively smooth without any BIG bumps or ridges. Large ridges will lead to problems after it has dried.

 

This section was cut after it dried. Its a little trickier this way and can lead to unfinished and rough edges.

We still have a little ways to go on the painting... Since I originally started writing this blog back 2 weeks ago. Fionnbharre and I BOTH got sick and caught up in the holidays again. But now we are well again and moving full speed ahead. Fionnbharre has been working hard on building cabinets and stairs and I'm continuing on the painting journey. I will have more updates soon!