Shur thing

In my spare time I dabble in calligraphy and watercolor painting and up until recently my brushes were small, with teeny tiny tips and paint came in palettes.

This changed when we became owners of the Ugly Duckling. Within days of putting our signatures on the sales contract I wielded paint rollers and paint came in buckets (usually 1 gallon buckets except for white. White comes in 5 gallon buckets). While I was still musing about how to best tackle the cutting in for nice crisp lines, dear husband went ahead and checked out the gadget front coming home with this thing[source: shur-line.com]

I was a bit skeptical at first. You know, a roller pad thing with little wheels and that's supposed to work? Considering the amount of edging needed in every room around windows and doors, along the base molding and ceiling, it was definitely worth a shot. The worst that could happen was that taping off every edge was the only way to go and that we wasted $3.

The process is easy-peasy. Float the pad side of your edger on the paint in your tray, then gently brush off the excess paint against the rim of your paint tray. Make sure you don't dip too deep or double dip because then you might end up with some paint on those little wheels which will track along the edge you're trying to avoid and that would be kind of counter productive.

Pull your edger along your ceiling's edge. Marvel at the crisp line and the ease of using this tool. Even the little man - he's seven - managed to handle the shur-line edger with no problems whatsoever along the trim of the window (he's too short to reach the ceiling so I let him try it safely grounded on the floor) with great results. Great stuff, and well worth its price! I'd still be cutting in today if husband hadn't picked up this thing!

These great results sort of enamored me with Shur-line products. I picked up a corner painter which seems to be getting mixed reviews but it's really difficult to live up to the fabulous edger. I have used it with good results but it didn't blow me out of the water like the edger. It -is- great if you need to read a corner that is out of arm's reach because it can be screwed to a telescope pole.

Today I proudly present to you my latest toy:

[source: shur-line.com, 2" trim brush]

If you have talked to my recently you might have heard me mentioning the amount of trim work I have been painting: base molding, window trim, door frames, doors, window sashes. There's a LOT of that in the Ugly Duckling and it's beautiful with a fresh coat of paint. Painting it, however, is rather ... shall we say, repetitive and not very exciting. It also requires 3 coats: 1 coat of primer to make sure the interior latex paint has a chance to stick to either shellac or lead paint residue and 2 coats of interior latex paint in semi-gloss Ultra Pure White. It's taking forever ... so I thought maybe I could make it more fun by picking up some new painter's tool.

Said and done - on one of my trips to the blue box I picked up a 2'' brush specifically for trim (and from shur-line to boot). Today I took it for its first test drive and Zooooey Mama! this brush painst trim ALMOST all by itself: great coverage, next to no visible brush strokes and the short grip is super comfy. LOVE it!

Watch out, trim! I'm bringing out the big guns!
Muhahaha!

[PS: First and foremost this blog is a diary for friends and family who want to follow along on our renovation adventure. I'm not making money off of it, there will be no paid advertising and Shur-line did not sponsor this post. Just thought I'd mention that ;o) ]