Overwhelmed at the thought of painting your pad?

Try a simple solution—throw a paint party! First-time painter Jessica Cantor (right), a 22-year-old design assistant, decided to enlist the help of her friends to give her new apartment a fresh coat. Did she succeed? Would she do it anything different? And does she still have those friends?!

Why We Painted
“My roommate Anais and I decided to paint our apartment because we hated the colors left by the last tenant. Anais’ bedroom was a very bright yellow, and our office was loud orange. We knew we wanted to go gray because we’re both into wearing gray right now.

Why We Made It a Party
“Being first-time painters, we were really nervous! We didn’t even know what “cutting in” meant. Also, the task seemed overwhelming if we couldn’t make it fun. So why not make it an event and invite friends over? Essential to the crew was Anais' boyriend, Jake--he was tall!”

Getting the Colors Right
“We’d heard Benjamin Moore had a huge array of cool colors so we went to Janovic for a consultation. Because I was painting an accent wall in my bedroom, which is a sage-green, I wanted to make sure the colors matched. Luckily we found some leftover sage-green in the basement so I painted a swatch to take to Janovic (Benjamin Moore’s retail chain in New York). There, I met with Color Consultant Paul Mutimear who opened my eyes to new things like how lighting affects colors, contrasting hues and more. For the office, Paul showed me a color I never would have thought of--a light violet that went nicely with both the gray and the green. I took home three color samples: two grays—a lighter and a darker option--and the violet. After painting the samples onto sheets of poster board, rather than directly onto the walls (Paul said this would keep any lighting or current wall colors from tainting the affect of the color), Anais and I agreed on the darker Benjamin Moore gray, called “Pewter (2121-30),” and the graceful “African Violet, (2116-50)” for the office.

The Spread
“We basically bribed people with food. And then noshed all day! Breakfast was bagels, monster muffins and piping hot coffee from the local deli. Lunch was pizza—ordered in halves so everybody could have their favorite topping. In between, we snacked on easy-to-grab treats like grapes, cherries, strawberries, baby carrots, chips, party mix (pretzels, crackers) and cookies. Time-out dessert was cupcakes. We saved the beer until later so we wouldn’t knock over paint cans!”

The Playlist
“We knew good music would be crucial so we chose songs that were well known and generally upbeat. Among our top plays:

You Know I’m No Good (Amy Winehouse)
A Hard Day’s Night (The Beatles)
The Longest Time (Billy Joel)
Como Tu (Carlos Vives)
Sugar, We’re Going Down (Fall Out Boy)
Learn to Fly (Foo Fighers)
Work It Out (Jurassic 5)
Heard ‘Em Say (Kanye West)
D’yer Mak’er (Led Zeppelin)
Killer Queen (Queen)
Run Around (Blues Traveler)
Oh What a Night (Four Seasons)
The Sweet Escape (Gwen Stefani)
La Camisa Negra (Juanes)

The Prep
“After fueling up on bagels, we began the prep: taping around the trim, moving and covering furniture protecting the floor with drop cloths. Anais had to scrape and spackle a few spots in her bedroom. Finally, we started painting! Paul had told us how to “cut in” using a brush around the edges, and then we used a roller on the walls.

The Problems
“We ran into some difficulty cutting in at the ceiling. We thought taping the ceiling would be too difficult, so we stood on a ladder and used the cutting-in metal tool. It worked pretty well, but required touching up later. The office was a little challenging, as the room has a drop trim with decorative molding, and some tricky tight spaces behind the radiator and between doors. We made sure to apply tape where needed and were extra careful in these tight spots. Around 2 pm we took a break for some pizza and went back for second coats and finishing-up.”

How Long It Took
“Start to finish—one full day, plus half the next. Once the paint had dried the next day, we touched up some areas--trims and molding, ceiling spots, etc.”

What We Loved
“The new mood in Anais’ room! The yellow was very bright and cheery, but Pewter is definitely more relaxing and chill. And African Violet makes the office a lot more peaceful and calm. Most of all, we just love looking at the walls and knowing we did it ourselves.”

What We Hated
“It’s true--most of your painting time is spent in prepping, which can feel really tedious. All you want to do is get the paint on the wall! But we definitely learned that prepping is important to ensure a good job.”

The Oops
“A couple of people forget to wear old clothes and got their pants smattered. And next time we’ll spend more time taping the ceilings. Cutting in with the tool was really difficult because paint got on the tool and then on the ceiling. This made more work later on since we had to go back and touch up with white.”

The Whew!
“No one wanted to start early in the morning, but I’m glad we did. By Saturday night, we got to go out and celebrate without anything weighing on our shoulders.”

Don't miss the Visual Gallery of this Paint Party>

Don't know what "cutting in" means? Check out the article "Brush Up Your Technique" and also the visual pictorial "6 Painting Techniques" in our Design Gallery.