My New Office

Allyson and I just bought and moved into our first house (I'll post more photos of the whole house later).  This was an exciting and daunting process at the same.  Suffice it say we have a bunch of work ahead of us considering our house was built in 1923.  As my Aunt and Uncle said in a house warming card: "Welcome to your new hobby."  Below are some before and after pictures of my new office.  The first picture is the "before" version.  We have plaster walls and this room was probably not painted in the last forty years.  This was definitely lead based paint so the prep time for this room was tripled due to the "no dry scrape rule" and any light sanding of the patches had to be done with a wet sanding block.  The Minnesota Department of Health had a good Removing Lead Based Paint - Interior Guide.

Another reason the whole process took so long was that nobody who previously painted in the last 87 years appeared to like painter's tape or drop cloths.  The second and third photos show the "before" and "after of the 8 inch baseboard we had to prep.  We used a combo of razor blades, carbide tipped scrapers and steel wool.  Again, before this was lead based, we had to do this wet with gloves and masks.  The paint spatter was a combo of latex (probably from the ceiling paint 20 years ago) and oil based paint.  After the fact, a buddy of mine told me that wood alcohol works on latex paint without damaging the wood below.  Lastly, we were lucky to have a true HEPA vacuum so getting any paint chips was done safely.

We painted with Behr Primer and Paint in One with the walls in Wasabi Powder (walls), the trim in Vermont Cream and the ceiling in Princess Ivory.  We based our colors after traditional colors for dens or studies in Craftsman style houses of the 1920s.  For your viewing pleasure, the last photo is the "after" picture complete with my empty bookshelf. 

See the full gallery on Posterous