Our friend Luke recently bought a mid-century house near downtown Las Vegas. The home has many distinctive rooms and original details, but it had been left in rough condition by previous tenants after a foreclosure. Luke decided to tackle much of the interior painting himself, learning a number of valuable lessons along the way. He agreed to share his experience, including the triumphs and the setbacks.
He began by visiting Ace Hardware to pick up Clark+Kensington paint in the color he wanted.
For the first time, all the rooms were a blank canvas.
To start, Luke decided to paint the bedroom red—the most challenging color, as he would soon discover. The walls were originally white, which he assumed would make coverage straightforward, but by the third coat the finish still looked uneven and roller marks were visible. He had to return to Ace twice for more paint, yet the problem persisted.
Frustrated, he bought a paint sprayer and spent hours carefully taping off surfaces—an important step he hadn’t fully appreciated before.
Unfortunately, the sprayer proved to be poor quality. Vibration caused the paint tank to loosen and fall off. After multiple failures and a messy cleanup—paint on himself, the ceiling, and the floor—he returned the unit and was told it was a known problem. That wasted time and materials, but taught him a tough lesson about equipment quality.
Next, Luke hired a professional union painter who used a large, reliable sprayer and produced excellent coverage. However, by then he had exhausted much of his paint supply and needed more. After searching several stores, he found three gallons of what he thought was the same color. He asked the clerk to match the original mix—unfortunately the result was wrong. The newly mixed gallons didn’t match the existing paint, ruining the consistency of the room’s color.
With the painter on-site and time ticking, Luke scraped dried paint from a floor covering and took it to Home Depot for a color match. The matched paint worked and technically remained the “Smoked Paprika” shade from Clark+Kensington. After the repaint and the painter’s work, the bedroom turned out great — worth the hassle in the end.
Next up was the living room, which required larger construction. A dividing wall separated the front door and fireplace from the bar and dining area. Luke removed a closet and converted the space into a new hallway leading to the bedroom wing. He also demolished portions of the wall and rebuilt sections where necessary, keeping structural supports intact to avoid excessive expense.
The house originally had white tile running through much of the floor, which he also removed in parts to better suit the new layout.
In the guest bedroom he removed a built-in shelving unit that occupied an entire wall and chose a rich blue accent paired with a gold trim inspired by the bathroom. The combination created a distinctive, cohesive look that he was very pleased with.
The office presented a different challenge: how to make the space functional without losing a closet, which would change the home’s bedroom count. Despite that, he removed a closet that sat back-to-back with his partner Liz’s master closet to make room for a larger master closet project. In the office, he built a recessed frame where the closet doors had been and covered the back wall from floor to ceiling with 1/8″ plywood. He stained and secured the plywood, planning to install recycled-wood shelves in front of it. The chosen paint color for the office complements a broad palette and, as the room came together, the overall effect turned out better than he initially expected.
For now, he left the original curtains in place because they surprisingly worked with the new paint.
Luke also began testing exterior paint and is excited to repaint the house’s facade. A test patch already shows promise.
One ongoing paint dilemma involves the casita, which had been heavily graffitied. He selected a bold orange to revive the wood-paneled room, but the result looked off—more salmon than the intended vibrant orange. It may be a mismatch of paint base, or the wood paneling might require a white primer first. He’s still deciding whether to repaint from scratch or to prime and recoat.
Finally, the master bathroom was a bold project. Liz wanted an over-the-top look, so they chose a metallic gold tone and added heavy glitter for dramatic sparkle. Luke used a high-end brass-like color and applied eight pounds of gold glitter, tossing it by hand onto the wet paint to achieve a thick, glittery texture. To protect the finish, he sealed the glitter with multiple cans of spray epoxy. The result is a glittering, dramatic bathroom—messy and time-consuming to create, but ultimately satisfying.
If you have a DIY renovation story you’d like to share, send it in—Luke’s experience shows that patience, the right tools, and occasional professional help can turn a challenging project into a rewarding transformation.