Painted Bedroom In Julia Morgan Home, August, 2022

This bedroom is in a home designed by Julia Morgan, the California architect best known for Hearst Castle, whose Bay Area houses are prized for their craftsmanship and built-in detail. A room like this deserves paint that respects the architecture, and that starts before the first can is opened.

Paint is something to take seriously

It starts with the paint itself. I was insistent with this client about two things: get a quality paint, and break out the built-in shelving in a contrasting color.

The brand and the finish you choose matter more than most people think. Premium paint carries more and better pigment, so it covers more evenly, holds its color, and stands up to cleaning. Cheap paint takes more coats and still looks thin. Finish matters too. Matte walls hide small imperfections and give a room a soft, calm look. Gloss on trim and built-ins wipes clean and makes those details stand out.

The contrasting color on the shelving is what makes this room. Painted the same color as the walls, built-ins disappear. Picked out in their own color, they read as the architecture Julia Morgan intended. The feel you get from detail like that can’t be faked.

Our standard procedure

Every paint job follows the same process, because the preparation is most of the job:

• Holes, dings, and cracks patched with spackle and sanded smooth
• Switch plates, outlet covers, and removable hardware taken off
• Fixtures and features that can’t be removed taped off and protected
• Every edge taped
• Primer wherever the color change is substantial, so the new color comes out true
• At least one full finish coat, more when the color calls for it
• The room kept clear and ventilated while the paint dries

Taped, then reverse-taped

This room had a lot of features to tape around: shelving, casings, and the details that make an older home worth living in. And with two colors meeting at every edge, everything wasn’t just taped off, it was reverse taped. Once the first color was dry, tape went back on over it, along the line where the second color would meet it, so the second coat cut a perfectly crisp edge against the first. It doubles the taping, and it’s the only way to get lines that sharp.

It’s all about those clean lines. This was a half-day job, and we’re very pleased with the results.

Thinking about painting? See how we keep projects stress-free, or send photos for an estimate.