Time to Prime! (and paint of course)

Now that the ceiling has been textured so beautifully, it was my turn to prime and paint it. The drywall guy told me to just put on one thick coat of primer and then it should be ready to paint. I bought a can of drywall primer off the shelf at Wal-mart. Here is the wet ceiling after one coat of primer.

 Then this morning I applied a coat of Wal-Mart's white ceiling paint off the shelf. That was a waste. It was basically primer. It had no sheen to it because it was flat paint. I do not recommend this, especially for a kitchen. By the time it was dry I could tell it was not a good paint. It did not match the sheen of the ceilings in the rest of the house. (Is sheen a thing? It's the word I'm using for how shiny it is.)
Here I am painting with a bag on my head to protect my hair. Painting ceilings is messy business.

 Here I am after the third coat of painting/priming. You can't see it well in the picture, but I was covered in paint speckles, from my eyeballs to my toes. I really had specs of paint on my contacts.

 Anyway, after a coat of primer, then a coat of flat wal-mart paint, I went to my favorite paint store in town and grabbed a can of Dun Edwards satin paint. I didn't get it tinted, I just had them shake up the white off the shelf. It matched the rest of the house so much better than the flat white. It has just the right amount of shine to it.

It is such a relief to have the ceiling painted and done! The ceiling alone has been an expensive part of this project. Between paying for the labor to tear out the sofit and have it professionally mudded and textured, along with paint and other supplies it has cost us around $650 just to make the ceiling the way we want it.
Now I need to pick out a wall color. Luckily painting the wall is far less messy than painting the ceiling!