Ok, so I know I said that I was going to show you the other change I made to the fireplace wall in the family room, but I wasn’t able to get any good pictures today due to the rain. Ugh, the storms we’ve had here are ca-ray-zay! Hello, sun …..are you out there? Please come back soon ok!
Anyhow, instead I thought I’d give you more info on my new diy bff, that I met through the Centsational Girl. I call him the smooth criminal, but his official name is floetrol.
Don’t confuse him with the original smooth criminal though. The orange bottle is good but not that good!
Floetrol is a latex paint additive (pentetrol is for oil-based paint) that extends the drying time and increases the paint flow which basically enables you to paint without brush marks. It’s not a paint thinner, and it doesn’t change the color of your paint. The directions on how much you need to add to your paint are on the back of the bottle. A little goes a long way. I found it at The Home Depot in the paint department (duh) and it was about $8. Worth every penny! The bottle says that adding it to your paint can increase the VOC. I didn’t notice any super strong paint fumes while using this product though. I just noticed how wonderfully smooth the paint went on and what a great finished result I was able to achieve. So after I painted the header on the fireplace, I decided to paint the picture frame moulding in the dining room and the foyer (which was in desperate need of repainting). The smooth criminal made a mundane, not-so-fun project super easy!
I used these supplies and got to work.
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| This also gives you a peek at the new floors in the dining room! |
I mixed my trim paint with floetrol in a small paint can I picked up at The Home Depot.
I love this short angle brush for painting trim.
I used a foam roller for inside the picture frames then went over it with that same angled brush.
Here’s a picture where you can kind of see why I repainted. The white moulding (after 20+ years) had started to yellow just a bit. In the picture below you see the old (on the left) and the freshly painted (on the right).
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| It was a much more dramatic change in person- I promise! |
I’m really glad the smooth criminal inspired me to get a project done that I had been putting off dreading for over a year now (since we moved in last March)! Here’s a closer look at the super smooooooth result!
I’ll never paint trim or furniture without the smooth criminal again. There’s obviously nothing criminal about him, unless being awesome is a crime! I guess I was just listening to a little too much MJ while painting 🙂
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| Don’t laugh! I’m already laughing hard enough for the both of us! |
Or maybe there were some paint fumes and they got to my head?! What, you mean you don’t randomly bust out your fedora while painting and listening to a little MJ?!
On another note, doesn’t “floetrol” sound like something your doctor would prescribe? Seriously, that’s probably why I never knew this product existed! Why don’t they start naming home improvement products like MAC names their lipsticks? Smooth criminal it is then 🙂
What do you all think of my new bff? Have you used this product before? Don’t you just love when you find something that inspires you to get a big, boring-but-important project done?
Linking up to The Stories of A to Z and The Lettered Cottage.
You are too funny! I read that CG uses this product and have been curious to give it a try. Wish I had used it when I painted my kitchen cabinets recently!