We’ve been doing tons of painting inside our house. We’re down to just one area, the stairs down to the finished basement. We stripped the wallpaper, but I just don’t think we’ll get around to scraping, repairing, priming, and painting the walls before the holiday hordes start descending beginning on Sunday.
We are having large crowds of family to our house 3 times this week. Probably 45 or so different people, ranging in age from 1 month to 80+ years.
We were thinking it might be fun if we just did a quick rough scrape of the walls, and rolled on a quick coat of primer. Then we could get a bunch of some kind of markers or something and have all our guests write greetings on the walls. I had also thought about handprints - but that could easily get messy.
So I was wondering if any of you might have any ideas of what kinda markers, finger paints, etc. could we use that could be easily washed off and/or painted over when and if we decide to do so.
(Sure, we could ask a paint of art store, but what is the chance they would have as much to offer as the teeming millions?)
Actually, a decent paint store probably carries some brand of marker-covering paint, for use in homes where the writing on the walls wasn’t supported by the parents…
Any markers or finger paint will do the trick, just make sure that you prime the wall really well before you paint over them. Killz[sup]®[/sup] makes primers designed for covering ink/mildew/other nasty stuff that bleeds through normal paint.
Thanks for the heads up on red (seeing as red and green might be obvious choices.) Also, re: paint, I figured we’d probably lean towards some watercolors - or inkpads. Tho I dread the idea of a bunch of kids pressing their palms on inkpads, and then raging through my freshly painted and decorated house!
Maybe it would be better to dump the whole idea.
I’ve got it! Liquid paper! On white primer. There’s the ticket!
(Seriously, I could see pastel washable markers. I’ll let you know what if any info we get from the paint store…)
You could make a huge paper Christmas tree, and then let people draw or paint ornaments onto the tree. It can cover up the unsightly wall and still provide a fun and creative outlet for the chilluns.
Your local discount or toy store sells TONS of washable markers and paints. Very easy to clean up but, still might be a good idea to follow up with Kilz after.