(Lack of) Progress Report

I sincerely thought I would be  much farther along by now. With the painting I mean. Clearly I was deluding myself. Painting is not something I'm very good at. It always seems so simple, so straight forward. I've seen those HGTV programs where people paint an entire room with no tape, and no errors while dressed in fancy clothes (and heels!) and taadaa! The room looks fabulous. Hmmm.  TV magic?  Maybe. I'd like to believe so. 

So far, I have painted the guest room and it's trim and as of this morning the doors to the pantry. That's it.  Roughly ten days worth of work.

Part of the problem is that it's a tedious chore. I'm not good with tedious. And it's inefficient!  Think about how many times I have to "circle" a room.  First clean. Then remove nails. Then spackle nail holes. Then sand. Then clean again. OK I've already circled the room 5 times and not a lick of paint has hit the walls!  That's just inefficient!   Then tape (absolutely essential as I'm not a tidy painter) then paint. Next up is second coat. Followed by painting the trim. The second coat on the trim. Let dry  then pull off the tape. so now that's six more circles of the room.  Total 11 circles. Even a dog only circles a spot 3 times before laying down.

Another part of the problem are my bifocals.  Half the time that I'm painting I can't really see what I'm doing. Yeah that could be an issue.  I either have to look over the top of my glasses which means everything is blurry, or constantly reposition my head so that I'm looking through the correct part of the glasses lens. Neither option is perfect.  And then there are my woefully arthritic fingers.  Now I now there are lots of people who have it worse and I'm just a big whiny hiney, but sometimes my fingers just don't do what they are supposed to do. I would say that 75% or more of the paint I end up having to clean up off the floor is because the brush or the roller leapt suicidally from my unreliable hands and dashed itself to the floor. Yes, this has been a challenge.

I'm learning a lot though.  One really important thing that I've learned?  Do NOT let me choose a colour.  I simply can't be trusted with those little colour squares.  I was positive, totally entirely, completely positive of the colour I selected for the guest room. It's a small room, so a light colour.  It's a dark room so a happy colour. I selected yellow, a nice, soft buttery yellow.  Sounds good doesn't it. Turns out to be a screaming lemon yellow. Yowtch!  But I had to use it. After all, we paid for it. In fact, 2 gallons of it. Only used one. I wonder what other room needs to be screaming lemon yellow? 
So any guests are forewarned to be prepared to wear sunglasses in your room if you are foolish enough to turn the lightswitch on. Fair warning. 

Today I finished the 3rd and final coat of white on the pantry doors. 3 coats!  Three!  Doesn't that seem excessive?  But the first coat didn't completely cover. The second coat left brush strokes marks.  The third coat is less than perfect but I'll be damned if I'm going to paint those doors a 4th time. Right now I'm just waiting for everything to dry (takes a bit longer here than in Colorado) so I can remove the tape and start thinking about the next project. The next project will be bigger.  The kitchen and living room. It's essentially all one room. First I need to select a colour. I think I'll go visit our neighbors.  They have a very cute little dog named Barkley.  I will consult with Barkley on the colour.  I'll put the colour chips on the ground and whichever one he pees on will be the colour we select.  Hey he can't do any worse of a job than I've already done.

The good thing about paint is that it's not permanent.  Horrible screaming yellow aside, while I'm not in a rush to repaint the guest room, mostly because I am tired of circling that room I nice to know that some day, I can chose a different colour and repaint.  I'd like to circle a different room for awhile now though. Circle of life, circling vultures, circling the block, circle the wagons!  And moving on to the next room!!

Wish me luck :)

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