Do I Have To? Paint Trim

Here again is my monthly installment of  "Do I Have To?"  a regular segment tackling the big list of do-it-yourself jobs that really aren't that fun.

Everybody likes crisply painted and clean trim. Nobody that I've ever met likes to do the actual painting.

When we first moved in, I was in hurry-up-and-make-the-house-presentable mode. I wanted the kids' rooms to be mostly done, and so it was all too easy to leave trim unpainted in every single room. Now I have miles and miles of backtracking to do, on my knees with a brush and a faint grimace on my face.

The largest of amount of unpainted trim is in the twins' room. You'll forgive me, I think, if you knew where we started:

The entire room was paneled in construction grade plywood, and then stained (except for that part they left inexplicably undone) some incredibly odd pinkish brown color. It looked like a bad sunburn. The ugly, it burned the eyes.

After we rescued the room from the plywood nightmare and the disgusting amount of filth, we decorated in pale blue, navy, and red.

Ah. Much better.

The room has a built-in desk at the opposite end, and while I did a few things to fix it up, I ran out of time to get it completely done. (My apologies for the picture. It was taken on a really dark day, and that navy blue paint sucks the light out of every photo.)

I painted around the desk area with the navy paint. The blues in the newly done room did a lot to tone down the remaining weird-colored paneling, but I wanted to get rid of it totally.

Then the boys and I moved into the house and.....

The room has been reserved for interplanetary warfare ever since.

I'm not going to go into the details, since y'all know the drill. Paint, roller, trim brush, knee pads (I'm only joking on that last one this time, but it doesn't sound like a half bad idea).

Another before:

And after: 

It's not done yet, and I think that's obvious. The underside of the desk only got primed, and I plan to extend the navy blue paint underneath on another day. The front and sides of the desk need some base trim, and the face frame is missing a piece between the first and second drawer on the left side. Hey, I didn't claim I'd finish anything, I just promised I'd make progress. And I did. The upside is that the weirdly flesh-colored plywood is now gone from view. Yeay!