This week was all about paint here in our teeny tiny theatre/media room in the making. The goal was to get both colours up before the carpet gets laid, that way there’s less prep and worry. I mean, who cares if you get some drips and drops on a cement basement floor that’s getting covered up anyway, right? Well, we only managed to get the colour on the wall in the main room, so the hallway and stairwell will have to wait until after the carpet is in since the installer called and moved up our appointment. Hey, I’m not complaining! The carpet is the only part of this room that we’re not doing ourselves, so the sooner he comes, the sooner I can get on with everything else!
Picking the Paint
The first order of business was to head to Rona and choose the colour for the Theatre Room. When we moved into this house we purchased many cans of Sico Pure Paint while they were on sale and have been bringing them back to get tinted as we need them. Did you know you can do that? It’s a great way to save money when you know you have lots of paint projects coming up. Hot Tip: Store the paint inside the house in a controlled temperature environment. Unfortunately, one of the last cans we had somehow was left in the garage for the past year, and when the paint tech went to colour it for us it had solidified to rock form. He couldn’t even dent it with a paint stick. Oops!
No problem, just the first pivot of this project. It did mean we had to buy another can of paint, which was a little annoying while trying to transform this room on a budget, but at $35 it wasn’t too hard of a hit.
The plan was always to paint the walls, ceiling and baseboards black. It IS a theatre room after all. Have you ever tried to pick a black paint? You walk up to the paint swatch wall, grab what you think is black until you hold it up to another swatch that looks black and realize one is actually dark green and the other dark blue.
I didn’t have time to bring the swatches home and look at them in the room (we live 40 minutes away from the nearest Rona). I knew I wanted a neutral black, without any obvious undertones, but ESPECIALLY not dark blue undertones. I highly dislike navy blue (sorry if it’s your fave!). So I used what was around and laid every swatch I chose on top of my black phone, as well as a roller handle that I grabbed off a shelf! It worked, and I ended up choosing Black Ice by Sico.
Black Ice by Sico – Online Paint Swatch
Sico Pure Paint
I love Sico Pure Paint because it is zero VOC and is a paint and primer in one, which means it’s safe for my family and takes less coats to cover the wall. As you can see, our kids are always close by when we’re doing projects, so it’s important to me that the paint we use is safe for them to be around.
My first choice for paint finish is always matte or flat. However, it is not the most durable finish, and with kids who insist on always touching the walls my husband is a bit traumatized by the scuffs that won’t wipe off. So, we went with an eggshell finish. I’m kind of wishing I stuck to my guns and got it in flat, but you can’t win ’em all!
Let’s Paint!
When we started putting the paint on the walls, I was a little worried. It looked really really brown. Did I make a mistake not bringing the swatch home? Or was the primer on the walls from the builder just so cheap that the drywall was still sucking up a ton of paint?
We decided to just press on, and I’m so happy we did. It is a beautiful, neutral black colour that looks amazing after just two coats.
This was my first time doing a monochromatic look in a room and I have to say, it’s my new favourite thing. Not because of how it looks, though it does look amazing, but because of how easy it makes the painting process! There’s no precision cutting, no taping, no concerns about rolling too high and hitting the ceiling (we’ve all been there!). And on top of all that, we still had the cement floors exposed, so it was the most easy going painting experience ever. I always let the kids jump in and help if they want, and even more so when I don’t have to watch like a hawk and make sure the floors don’t get ruined!
Let There Be Light!
When the builder was finishing this space they had their electricians come in and discuss with us about where we wanted outlets places. While they were here I took a shot and asked for 2 sconces to be wired to their own light switch, and for the outlet where the tv is going to be installed higher on the wall so it sits behind the mounted tv. These seem like super simple requests, but if you’ve ever dealt with tradespeople working for a builder you know that usually any change is a big deal. To my surprise, they were happy to make those changes.
When they came back to connect everything, after the drywall was done, we gave them the lights we were planning to use instead of them installing the builder grade boob lights and us changing them out a few days later. Work smarter, not harder, right?!
When searching for sconces, I narrowed it down to these two options:
Set of Two Sconces from Amazon (Click photo to take you to the link)
Black and Gold Sconce (Click photo to take you to the link)
Since most of the room will contain sharp lines as well as all the black paint and accessories (think couch, tv, shelf etc), I decided to go with these sconces from Bouclair. I like that they still have clean lines but that they’re soft lines, and the little touch of brass adds some subtle warmth to the room. I’m waiting to install the glass globes on them until the rest of the work is done, but I’m wondering now if I should leave them bare. What do you think? To globe or not to globe?
Eventually I would like to switch out the ceiling lights, but we had these sitting in our master closet for 3 years with the intention of using them in our hallway upstairs. I don’t see that happening anytime soon so for now they have a home in the theatre room and hallway. The ceiling lights will almost never be on when we are using the room so I wasn’t overly concerned with using these for now. Better than the builder boob lights anyway!
Theatre Room Progress – Week 2
That’s it for this week! I’m very happy with our progress so far and am so happy to see my vision coming to life, even if it’s just with some paint on the walls (and ceiling and trim). Next up is carpet and painting the hallway and stairwell.
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And don’t forget to check out all the other amazing participants and cheer them on. You can find all the links to other blogs and instagram accounts here on the One Room Challenge official page www.oneroomchallenge.com/orc-blog
