When life gives you lemons ask for salt and tequila!

Monday, August 2, 2010

Bye bye oak baseboards!

I’ve talked about how much I loathe the oak baseboards that we have at the house. I love white baseboards and how crisp, and clean they look. So we decided to paint over it. I looked online and many said to leave it alone as it decreases the resale value of the house. The problem is, once you paint over it, there is no way of getting this original oak baseboards back. Unlike wall colors, where you can change to your own preference. To us, the oak baseboards make the house look dated and dingy. We decided to go for it, crossing our fingers that our future buyer will appreciate the white baseboards too. IMG_4041 IMG_4089

Here’s the look of the oak baseboards that is EVERYWHERE in the house including door trim.

First, we have to sand the baseboards to get rid of the varnish. Noticed how I keep taking credit for all the work John did? :) Anyway, with the help of this fabulous sander, John was able to cut the time of sanding job in half.
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After sanding, he vacuumed off all the dust that was flying everywhere. It was so sandy and dusty around the house. We made sure to open all windows for air circulation.

And then, he primed the trim before applying 2 coats of semi gloss white paint.  IMG_4037IMG_4038

Lastly, he went back to touch up the wall with the same original paint color when we bought the house. There was leftover paint in the garage, however, not enough for our touch ups. So we took the paint to Home Depot for them to match it. The color came out exactly the same! We thought about changing the wall color, but figured that was too much of a project, plus, the color doesn’t look that bad. So we kept it. We did, however, change the wall color in the family room.

The finished room look so much nicer with the white trim. No regrets painting over the trim! IMG_4074 IMG_4075IMG_4088 IMG_4087 IMG_4108  IMG_4134

The color is Restoration Hardware’s Silver Sage color matched to Dunn Edward’s paint.

3 comments:

Denise said...

i think u're mad to paint over it, gimme oak anytime! heh..to each her own.
btw, how's the pregnancy coming along?

Adeline said...

Pregnancy is going so far so good. It's kind of scary to see my belly grow each day.

Denise said...

how wonderful! :)

its the opposite for me, i'm seeing my tummy shrinking these 2 months coz i'm on my wedding diet and so far i've lost 3cms on my waist!