There are maaaany things we have learned through our recent 1st floor renovations, but one of the biggest is how to keep ourselves on a schedule. A big part of maintaining that schedule was learning how to paint quickly! Right in the middle of our renovations, I traveled to a work conference where I had the opportunity to talk with a rep from HomeRight.
She mentioned that their PaintStick would help speed up the process considerably, and I was thrilled to give it a shot. We were in painting hell at that point, and the fact that they were willing to sponsor this post for my honest opinion was enough for me to agree to it!
I may or may not have mentioned to her that one of the best things about this conference was that it gave me a much needed break from painting if only for a few days! Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for my husband. He was stuck at home trying to arrange a flooring install, cleaning up drywall dust, and doing his best to get everything painted!
A month before our house had looked somewhat like this:
A few days before I left, the final coat of mud on the new drywall was sanded. That gave us about 2 weeks to get everything cleaned and painted before our new floor was installed. Remember, a renovation is all about juggling a lot of schedules and making sure that timeline stays on track!
But new drywall is NOT fun to paint. Nope, not fun at all. And we had pretty much taken most of the 1st floor down to the studs. Ceilings, walls, new walls… there was raw drywall everywhere we looked.
This translated to 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint on nearly everything. 4 COATS OF PAINT!!! It’s over now, and it still makes me want to weep.
Before I left, I cleaned up the drywall dust as best as I could and wiped down all the ceilings and walls to prepare for painting. Then I tried my absolute hardest to get everything edged. My husband doesn’t have the steadiest hand when it comes to paint edging, so that is always a job that falls to me.
Our 1st floor is roughly 1,000 sq. ft.
Did you absorb that?? 1,000 sq. ft. and every wall, corner, window and door trim needed to be edged 4 times (2 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint). When I left for the conference, I wasn’t sure if I was going to have feeling in my hands to grasp my suitcase.
I was getting texts from my husband while I was there with his progress on rolling the walls, and it was not good. Even though our floors were down to the subfloor and there were only a few scattered pieces of furniture, so we didn’t have to worry about drop cloths, it was just an enormous project that took forever.
Then on the 2nd day of the conference, I spoke with the HomeRight rep and was showing her some of our progress photos. She mentioned the PaintStick EZ-Twist, and I honestly went out into the lobby and texted my husband to tell him to stop. She sent us a PaintStick to try, and this non-hugger wanted to go back and wrap her up in a giant bear hug.
Once we started using it, we were FLYING through the coats of paint! I was actually glad that he had already put one coat of primer on the ceiling before the PaintStick arrived. It gave us a really good comparison of how much time we were saving now that we had it. Guys, hours. I mean it… we were saving hours with this thing.
The key is that you no longer have to use a paint tray and take the time to keep reloading your roller and refilling your tray. The handle on the PaintStick is clear, and you draw the paint straight into the handle (with NO mess!). Once you see that your handle is filled with paint, it feeds it directly onto the roller cover and you can begin painting your walls (or ceiling).
You can control how much paint flows through your roller cover by the twist action on your handle. There’s no dripping either because you’re not carrying a loaded roller from the tray to your wall. It’s all contained within the handle!
Plus, it has a built-in extension (up to 64″), so it eliminates the need for a ladder. Also a HUGE time saver! Not to mention a back-saver!
The HomeRight website claims you can paint an 8×8 wall in 1 minute. I’m a cynical gal who has to see things to believe. I’m saving you the trouble… believe it. It is SO fast.
The inside went so quickly, that my husband had enough energy left to paint this wall in our garage that was also new drywall. Yes, we’re crazy… the renovation extended to our garage even!
But he had this entire wall painted in about 7 minutes!! It was insane! And so appreciated since our to-do list is stretching out onto 3 pages now. 🙁
This is what our kitchen looked like after most of the renovations were complete and it was time to paint:
And after 4 coats on the ceilings and walls (in hardly any time thanks to the PaintStick!):
Obviously, we still have a long ways to go until we can call this renovation complete, but this feels like so much progress!! It’s amazing the difference that painted walls can have in a room!
