Weeks 20 and 21: Primer, paint, and engineered hardwood floor

I’m a little behind on my weekly postings. Partly because we don’t have internet set up at the house yet, partly because I don’t have much spare time, and also partly also because the days and weeks have become a bit of a blur. We are building our own house acting as the general contractors. By week 20 we painted the walls and installed the engineered hardwood floor.

Priming a new house

It was probably two or three weeks ago now that we primed the whole house. We rented a paint sprayer from home depot that you put right in your 5 gallon pail of paint. We rented the sprayer for 24 hours, and I was able to prime the whole house and do two coats of the ceiling paint.

I used probably twice a much paint as I had planned because there is a lot of overspray and wasted paint. I think I had planned to use 10 gallons of primer, but had to run out halfway through painting and get 10 more gallons. It was well worth it though to rent the sprayer for the time it saved. There’s no way I could have rolled the paint for the whole house in that amount of time.

Here is the girls bedroom all primed and the ceiling painted. The ceiling paint I had tinted to Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace, which is the colour I will be using for all the trim.

And the master bedroom and ensuite.

This is the boys bedroom. I know it’s just white paint, but the primer makes the house seem so much brighter.

This is the hallway looking towards the front hall. We don’t have the stairs installed yet, so that is just a temporary set of stairs and railing.

This is the living room at the top of the stairs. The living room is open to the kitchen and the dining room.

This is looking towards the kitchen. We planned to inset our fridge a bit in that opening so it won’t stick too far out into the kitchen. The dining room is to the left of the kitchen.

This is the mudroom all primed. We also got our laundry machines set up in the mudroom! That was a very happy day.

Engineered hardwood floor

We also installed the engineered hardwood floor on the main floor. We went with Armstrong Prime Harvest white oak engineered floors. They are 5 inch wide boards, and the colour we chose is called Dovetail. It’s not super dark, but almost has a bit of a grey tone to it.

The installation of engineered hardwood floors is a little different than the solid hardwood that we have done in the past. We assumed we could use a regular hardwood floor nailer, but when we started we realized it wouldn’t work. There is a different nailer that’s meant for engineered floors. It’s similar to a brad nailer, but has a foot that rests on the nose of the flooring.

Wall paint for a new home construction

The color I chose for most of the house is called Intense White by Benjamin Moore. We were in a rush to get some plumbing fixtures installed so I painted the main bath right away. Intense White is a very light grey, maybe just a shade or two darker than pure white.

This is a poor picture, but the girls room I painted three walls with Intense White, and the fourth wall is a bright raspberry pink called Romanesque that I got from Dulux. I’m a little cheap when it comes to paint, and tried to squeeze out that one wall with a quart of paint. It wasn’t enough so I’ll have to go back and do another coat sometime.

The boys bedroom I painted Feather Grey, another Benjamin Moore color. (I repainted it later to a different blue). Generally when I’m in the process of picking out paint colors, I have about 40 different paint chips in my purse. I just pick them up wherever I go. Then I look at them, tape them to the wall and see how it looks throughout the day, then I google the color and try and find pictures online. When I’ve made my decision I try and find a store that has a sale, and get them to color match.

I generally just buy lower end paints that are no more than $30 a gallon, but I’ve never noticed a difference between paint brands. Though I’ve never tried high end paints, so maybe those are actually better?  This room I also ran out of paint on my last wall of the second coat. Find out my best painting tips

This is the hallway with the finished engineered hardwood floor and Intense white paint on the walls.

In the living area I painted all the walls with Intense White. One living room wall I used Newburyport Blue by Benjamin Moore as an accent color.

You can see here that the Intense White is a bit darker and slightly warmer than the primer. I love it and am very happy with my paint color choices.

I haven’t gotten around to painting the front hall and the mudroom, but they will also be the same colour as the rest of the house (UPDATE: here is the finished mudroom)

Where are we currently living?

And if anyone is curious about our living situation, we are staying in two trailers behind the house. It’s been over a month now that we have been living here. Most of the time it’s not a lot of fun for me and Tony. Four children in a trailer, a baby who wakes up multiple times a night, sick kids, rain, wet stinky laundry, zero counter space for cooking… It gets to us after a while.

But then again the kids say they love it and are not at all tired of camping. We have two full bathrooms, hot water, heat, air conditioning, and satellite television. Things could be worse and we really are quite fortunate to be building our dream home. We just have to stick it out a little longer!