5 Things You Need To Know Before Painting Your Walls White

Have you been thinking about painting your walls white? With all of the beautiful light and airy interiors, we are constantly exposed to that its no wonder our love for white has become so strong. When it comes to using white paint not everything is rainbows and unicorns so before you pick up that paintbrush I want to let you in on the 5 Things You Need To Know Before Painting Your Walls White!

White paint is no longer reserved for rentals and if you’re a person that likes change in their home as much as I do then having white walls is the perfect way to ensure you won’t need to repaint every time you decide to change your throw pillows.

Not to mention white is one of the most versatile paint colors due to its ability to blend with any home design style.

A few months back I got this urge to repaint and I kept quiet because we still had yet to finish painting the last time we started so I knew the mere mention of repainting the entire area would quickly send my husband into a tailspin… But once I get an idea there’s really no stopping me no matter how crazy it may seem.

So if you’re a regular reader and you have been wondering why things have been so quiet around here the past few weeks its because I finally won him over and we’ve been painting like our lives depended on it!

Our home has seen many colors since we moved in and I finally feel like I have found my “signature color”, we’ve been through the typical builder grade tan, a chocolate brown that had no business being invented, bright red and even beautiful gray walls but nothing has given me that wow factor that I have been chasing for what feels like forever until now!

As much as I love the way everything turned out I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that this has been one of the hardest paint jobs we’ve ever done and we have even covered up bright red paint if that tells you anything.

We went into this paint project blind to the challenges that lay ahead and I’m kind of glad things happened that way because painting is pretty much my least favorite thing to do and knowing that we would spend so much time on it may have made me rethink my paint choice…

That being said it was 100% worth every single minute and it moved us one step closer to the dream home we’ve been working so hard to create.

When I had my grocery store magazine aisle epiphany several months back (you can read about that here) and decided to change things to a much more simple modern farmhouse esthetic, white walls were one of the first things on my list.

White has been a part of farmhouse design since the beginning and I personally feel like one just isn’t right without the other. I’m not talking your grandma’s type of farmhouse design with script quote signs and shabby decor, I’m talking modern farmhouse with clean lines, simple decor and a home that works for you instead of the other way around.

Throughout the process, we experimented with different things to try and pinpoint the easiest way to get to white walls with the least amount of steps and I think you’ll appreciate our findings.

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5 Things You Need To Know Before Painting Your Walls White

Choosing The Color: White is one of the hardest paint colors to choose and if you plan on walking into the store and walking out with some random color you chose willy nilly then I have to strongly advise against it. Just like gray, there are a million versions of white paint ranging from cool, warm, yellow etc. Picking the one that’s right for your home can be tricky so first determine what type of white paint would go best with your design style and always test the paint in your own home in several different areas. Most colors change depending on the time of day or the location so be sure you don’t skip this step.

Here are some great white paint colors and details about each one.

Cool Whites:  Behr Ultra Pure White//Chantilly Lace //  Simply White // White // Decorators White

Warmer Whites – Off White: Swiss Coffee // White Dove // West Highland White

Gray Whites: Behr Silver Drop // Dunn Edwards Foggy Day // BM Balboa Mist // Pale Oak // Dove Wing

Paint Price Doesn’t Matter: In order to give you guys valuable tips I tested the coverage using several different paint qualities to see what produced the best result. When I went and purchased the paint I bought a 5 Gallon bucket of Behr paint and primer in one, the basic purple can, once we began painting and it didn’t cover so well the first thing Wayne blamed was the paint quality (it was the cheapest version in the Behr line) to test his theory I purchased the most expensive of the Behr line and guess what??? No difference!!! None!!! I have to say I was even shocked by that one. So unless you have some kind of loyalty to a certain type of paint quality I wouldn’t spend the extra money. You’re going to need a lot of paint no matter what so you might as well save some money.

Primer Is Your Best Friend: When we first started this project we began with our entire wall of built-ins, we were covering a very light gray (SW repose gray) so we thought we could get by without using primer, HUGE MISTAKE! We used an insane amount of paint just finishing the built-ins and keep in mind the shelves were already painted white so all we were dealing with was the wall area in between, the baseboards, and crown. Also, keep in mind when using primer your walls will likely still need two coats of primer and two coats of white paint.

All in the prep work: Just like any paint job the devil is in the details. Prep work is not fun and it is my least favorite part of any project, my creative brain just can’t like it. But I will say that taking the time to tape everything off properly, sand and de-glossing our trim definitely saved us a lot of time having to clean up or redo things once we finished.

Tricks Of The Trade: If you’re going to be painting a large area  (in our case we painted approximately 900 sq ft) you will likely  need to take breaks, typically this means rinsing the paint brush out to keep it from drying up. Instead, we have been placing our brushes in a plastic bag, it used to be whatever plastic Target bag I could find laying around but on one of my trips to get paint I spotted this genius product!! The Brushbaggy, it allows you to store your wet paintbrush inside this airtight bag for a very extended period of time.

Now listen, I love to save money and I will likely continue to use the first plastic bag I can get my hands on because that’s just me but the thing that actually got me was the Brush Baggy For Paint Trays which is pretty much the most genius invention ever and I wish I had been the one to think of it. I will 100% continue to keep these on hand because nothing sucks more than having a bunch of dried up useless paint inside the tray! If you think BrushBaggy would be something helpful that you could use around on paint jobs around the house they have an entire page of cool paint related products you can check out here.

 Work Smarter Not Harder: About halfway through this job we decided it was time for some reinforcements, we needed help! Then I remembered that a long time ago I had purchased a HomeRight Finish Max Pro Paint Sprayer to paint the bathroom cabinets but I ended up getting sidetracked on another project per usual and never used it but there was no better time to finally break that baby out! We threw giant tarps down over all of our belongings and went to town spraying the crown and baseboards, this thing worked like a champ and saved us so much time! We did use it on the walls some but mainly for the trim and we will never do it by hand again.

For reference, we used 7 gallons of Behr Ultra Pure White (white with no undertones) this is actually the base that all Behr paint starts with so its already on the shelf, plus two gallons of Kilz 2 Latex Primer for approximately 900 sq ft. So be prepared to buy a lot of paint to get good coverage and definitely spring for the primer because even though we still needed two coats of primer plus two coats of paint the Kilz 2 primer is $11.00 cheaper so it will keep you from spending extra.

Although there are some drawbacks to painting your home white it is 100% worth it in my opinion.

The difference it made on our built-ins alone is amazing and being able to literally change anything without having to repaint because the colors didn’t blend well is one thing that I will love for years to come! Be careful though, once you have one white room you may become addicted and contemplate painting your entire home white! 🙂

If you aren’t already I would love it if you’d follow me on Instagram, I am an introvert by nature and trying to build a community of like-minded creatives requires that I step out of my box a bit so head over and hit the follow button 🙂

I have linked all of the products we used to paint our walls white below, click the photo of the product for a direct link. 

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