De-radiating your laundry room

Yellow is often associated with cheery moods, sunshine, daisies, butter, omelettes … you know, good things. There are good yellows and bad yellows. The yellow in our laundry room was a sickly yellow that radiated. It bounced off the beige floor and made that glow, too. And not in a happy way. So, naturally, this became #1 on our project list.

They call him Mellow Yellow (that's right) ...

But to be fair, the laundry room was also our first project because our new washer & dryer were set to be delivered on Dec. 30. Painting a box is a lot easier when you don’t have to paint around other boxes.

The laundry room is also our designated lab rat. It has cabinets and trim, and since we are considering painting the kitchen cabinets and trim elsewhere in the house, the laundry room seems like a logical place to try things out. If we mess up, it’s no big deal. It’s the laundry room. A nice one, sure, but we don’t plan to parade people through it or enter it into competitions.

So, we had to choose a wall color that neutralized the yellowness of the floor, brightened the room in a healthy way, and didn’t clash with the gray W&D moving in. Originally, I was going to choose whatever color we were going to use in the master bath, just to bring some cohesion to our wall colors and not have 20 different paint buckets sitting around. The swatch in Olympic’s Harbor Light seemed the best contender, and while I selected it for the laundry room, it did not win in the master. That one is still to be determined.

Habor Light in the center

Young House Love primarily uses Olympic Premium in their homes, because its zero-VOC and low odor and, even better, their colorants are now also very low VOC. You can buy zero-VOC paint and then cancel out the benefits when high VOC colorants are added. We would up with Olympic Icon, which is also low odor and zero VOC, because according to the Lowe’s rep, they are phasing out the Premium line (supposedly they are the same thing). We went satin for the finish for some wipe-ability but not super gloss.

While throwing up swatches, we realized just how powerful the not-so-mellow yellow could be, so we bit the bullet and primed with Kilz Premium, which is a low odor and low-VOC primer that also contains stainblocking properties. I’ve read several DIY blogs that have used it for priming their trim and cabinets, so we figured one to prime them all was the way to go.

First order of business was to cut in with the primer. Initially, I used a 2-inch, angled stiff brush as per all the other DIYers out there but have since bought a 1.5 inch angled brush that I feel works much better. The 2-incher (both Purdy) was just too thick, IMHO, and I made more mistakes with it.

Btw, cutting in gets tedious. It is the longest part of project. Rolling is a beautiful breeze. You see me rollin’? I be smilin’. (Yes, I know that doesn’t fit the song. Pssh.)

In cutting in, we experimented with taping versus being very, very careful. Taping means you can go faster and not freak out, but if you have bleeds, you’re kind of SOL. Also, while priming the walls, we didn’t think MAYBE WE SHOULD JUST PRIME THE TRIM TOO BECAUSE THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE. No. We taped/cut in all around that trim, primed the walls, painted them, and then primed and painted the trim. Side note: Mike is claiming he told me to prime both together. I have no memory of this. But apparently I was "in a mood" so he "let it be."

Live and learn, folks. If you’re priming the walls in a room you’re going to prime the trim - GO NUTS! Get sloppy with that brush (just not on the floors, plzthx). Oh, you got some on the trim? Give it some more! You know it wants it.

Anyway.

Primed and ready

When the first coat of Olympic went on, I liked it. But a few hours later, I was getting a bit frustrated, because some yellow was poking through in a way that looked like it was repelling the paint. As in Harbor Light just couldn’t handle the cosmic rays. There’s no such thing as a one-coat paint, I told myself.

And it’s true. The second coat went much better and proved to be all we needed. I love the color, especially how it neutralizes the vinyl floor, so now I don’t even want to replace it. I’ll just throw a cute rug down and call it good.

So, then it was onto the trim. We primed with one coat, and then painted two coats of Valspar Ultra in Ultra-White Semi-Gloss. It’s also a low-odor, zero-VOC paint but supposedly higher quality. We wanted to experiment between the two different brands from Lowe’s and see which we preferred. Olympic Icon is around $5 cheaper per gallon than Valspar Ultra.

I found Valspar a little more difficult to work with. It was thicker (more solids for better coverage), but it seemed to dry too fast. I’d reload my brush and try to continue and then the recently applied paint felt gummy while trying to blend it with the fresh strokes. The first coat looked like enough in some spots and not-so-much in others, probably wherever the primer was thicker. The second round was more consistent (just like the walls with Olympic), though I still had the problem of the paint acting up between brush loads. Mike pointed out our opinion might change as we get our technique down.

I do love painted trim in this room, but the experience does give me pause before other main level rooms, such as the kitchen, halls, or dining rooms. It’s a tedious and sometimes curse-inducing process. We’ll finish painting the trim in the master (looks like the P.O.s only did one coat), and probably do the trim in the other bathrooms, but that should keep us busy for awhile. We also need to figure out good stop points before starting something in rooms that connect.

Please don't mind the camera phone shot for the after. I left the camera at the house and we haven't been back since ... eek, last year! Back to continue painting the master bright and early tomorrow!

For now, I actually don’t mind having the cabinets as dark stain. I think it gives the room more interest. But we will likely still experiment on them before painting in the kitchen, because those cabinets are too nice to ruin on a learning curve. So, someday there will be more updates in this room, but for now I’m satisfied to let it be.

Now the before and after, for full effect:

Btw, the tale of finding a washer and dryer is something for another day.