painting

prep for paint in dining

living area

new paint

With the trailer completely demo’d (furniture, carpet, linoleum, window accents, etc) and all accessories removed as well as the front bedroom and bathroom rebuilt, it was finally time to prep for painting. Sounds easy right? First, I had to clean everything to keep dirt and particulate out of the paint. Underneath the small strip of carpet I was able to get two full dustpan loads of dirt. So gross. After a thorough half day of deep cleaning, I had to sand every surface to prep for paint. RV walls are made from partial wood paneling with a thin paper/vinyl covering the exterior. This surface works well for ease of cleaning, but the slick surface doesn’t allow paint to bond well. Following the advice from other bloggers, I decided to sand and prime walls with Glidden Gripper. Using an electric sander and respirator mask, I spent about 4-6 hours sanding all the surfaces. This includes the ceiling with a 150 grit sanding screen. I found the screen to be better than sandpaper because it didn’t take too much of the surface off and it also didn’t load up with particulate the way paper does. You really want to just “rough-up” the surface to create pores to allow the primer to bond. After sanding the interior I also sanded all the doors, cabinets, drawers.  This is a very tedious and time consuming process but perhaps the most important. Lack of detail with this step and you’ll have serious issues with the paint adhesion process!

After sanding, I had to once again deep clean. I then vaccummed all the surfaces to remove dust and particulate and wiping all surfaces down with Krud cutter. Lastly, I had to tape and mask all the windows, countertops, and any accessories that were not to be painted. This would prove to be the most frustrating part of the process. At first I chose the blue painters tape but that was a huge mistake. That stuff literally doesn’t even stick to itself. I would tape and mask an entire window and by the time I finished the next window the first was already coming off. I was almost through when I decided to go back to the hardware store and buy Frog Tape. It cost a few dollars more but well worth it!

Next was the first prime coat. I decided to spray the walls as opposed to brush and roll.  I wanted to have as little texture on the painted walls as possible. I felt that having obvious textures from brushes or rollers might make the job feel cheap. However, using a sprayer was very difficult in such a small space. I purchased the smallest fan tip I could find for my sprayer since many of the areas were cramped and difficult to reach. You also have to be careful and KEEP MOVING with the sprayer. If you stay in an area too long you will get runs. Keep a nice brush or roller handy to fix these runs so you don’t have to redo it later. Also, spraying in such a tight space requires a nice mask- respirator and cover as much of your body as possible……ask me how I know. After two coats of primer and two top coats, the transformation finally started to take shape!!!

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