My dear friend Shair has been an inspiration. Early on in our friendship I told her I enjoyed painting (as in decorative/tole painting). She said she LOVED to paint too. So I suggested we get together and paint something…like a flower pot or an angel. She said, “I like to paint WALLS!” I’d never painted a wall. She says her house is held together by all the paint on the walls. A wonderful day for her is to go to the paint store and find what she calls ‘boo-boo’ paint for $5. She will happily bring it home and start in painting a room in her house. Occasionally, part way through the job, she runs out of steam and her loving hubby comes home from work and finishes it up. Not a bad arrangement really.
Well, as I said, she has inspired me to try painting walls. We’ve lived in our house 15 yrs now…the longest we’ve EVER stayed in one place…and things are showing their age.
So over Thanksgiving we undertook the remodel of our
master bedroom. We painted the entire room, laid laminate flooring, and built some wonderful closet space using the Ikea Pax system.
That went so well that with the 3 day weekend approaching I told my hubby we were going to WORK reclaiming the upstairs bedroom and turning it into a guest room. For the past 15 yrs it has been the boy’s bedroom.
It was Alan’s while growing up (it’s the bigger bedroom), but Triss moved upstairs when Alan moved to Seattle. That was only the start of the fun--Triss went to college in Seattle and Alan came home. Alan went to Japan for study abroad and Triss came home. Triss went to Japan to teach English and Alan came home to finish school. WHEW—they are great at tag-teaming us so we’ve never really experienced an empty nest (and boy do I want to!). But now, Now—Alan got married and moved next door. Triss is about to start his 3rd year teaching in Japan and will probably stay for a 4th—so NOW was my chance.
Friday afternoon Triss called us on Skype (it was Sat morning in Japan). After chatting for a few minutes I told him we had to head out to the paint store and the following conversation took place:
Triss: “what are you painting?”
Me: “the guest room”
Triss: “guest room??” pause “you mean MY ROOM?”
Me: “you don’t have a room”
Triss: “you’re so mean!”
And off we went to the paint store. I bought some color packets to try and didn’t like either of them so went back Saturday and settled on Ginseng. I wanted something that would still make the room seem light and bright but cool at the same time.
So Saturday we packed up boxes of left over boy-stuff, took down posters, took out furniture, washed 15 yrs of crayon and pencil marks off the walls and started taping everything off.
We finished up in time to go to our church's Saturday evening service. Sunday morning we painted. I did the edges, Dearsie manned the roller. When it got over my head we switched.
Because we found out that painting wasn’t THAT scary we went ahead and invested in canvas drop cloths with an eye toward future jobs. They worked great…with one small exception. I was wearing shorts and crawling along doing the edges by the baseboards…that night I realized my knees were red and sore! (and an elbow and some knuckles). Basically it was the rough canvas that had abraded my poor sensitive skin. OUCH!
We finished in time to make it to the church picnic where a new plane was being dedicated for MAF to use (a story for another time). We didn’t stay long as I was exhausted and the plan was to shampoo the carpet the next day.
Up fairly early the next morning I went in to survey our work…and there…in the morning light…I saw places with white peeking out from under my beautiful Ginseng! Our walls and ceilings have a small bumpy texture to them, and some of those bumps didn’t get coated on all sides! As I walked around the room—paint brush in hand—I kept finding place after place. It all seemed to depend on how the light was hitting it and how close you were as to whether or not they were noticeable. (Dearsie hardly noticed a thing). So after an hour or so I decided to be DONE. But let me warn you—if you come over and happen to look up and say, “you missed a spot” I”ll be handing you the paint brush and telling you to knock yourself out!
OH, and I did wash the carpet. It was in remarkably good shape. It does still have a few stains that didn’t come out but it was hardly worn at all…an unseen benefit of a boy’s room where clothing and paraphernalia usually covered the floor so completely it was easy to forget the color of the carpet underneath. Who knew?
My painted toe...
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