Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.
In the beginning, it sounded like such a good idea. White walls + empty house = fresh canvas. Get the new house painted before we moved in, because I know us. Once we’re there and we have to move furniture or plan around life, it won’t happen.
The first sign that perhaps this wasn’t such a great idea actually happened a week ago when we were struggling to match the paint for touchups at this house. I had a previously opened quart of paint in the van, and the bottom was crunched because That Man dropped it at Lowe’s as we were checking out. So it wouldn’t sit upright. Our plan was to grab dinner at Hinode, our local Japanese Steakhouse, and then run by Lowe’s for a different finish. We pulled into Hinode and I opened the door, looked down, and the paint can had opened in the floorboard between my feet. Paint EVERYWHERE.
I scooped paint out of the car with my bare hands and used every napkin and cloth available in the car trying to get the paint up before it dried. As with previous catastrophes, the Law of Catastrophes says that the number of napkins/wipes available to clean up any mess is inversely proportional to the size of said mess. I ended up walking into a nice restaurant with paint up to both elbows, on my pants, and unfortunately left some on their parking lot.
Another Law of Catastrophes (waiting to happen) involves painter’s tape. Again, it seemed like such a good idea: painter’s tape pre-loaded with plastic sheeting. Since we plan to use a paint sprayer on the new house, we need to cover the ceiling at least a couple of feet back to protect its whiteness from our neutral paint color. This new contraption seemed like the perfect answer.
In reality, it’s rather like an octopus trying to use Saran Wrap. It sticks to itself better than the ceiling or floorboard. It also sticks really well to my fingers (so that I yank off a good six inches or more off the ceiling when I need to move to the next section) and even my hair, thank you very much. The dispenser is heavy enough that if it hangs free, it twists. Bad idea when there’s TAPE on one side. And of course, since there is tape involved, it doesn’t just roll out freely. Some pressure is required to get it off the roll. While you’re holding the taped end up on a ladder with plastic dangling in your face…
Sitting here this morning stiff, sore, with a constant headache for the second day in a row, I have to ask myself. How big of a paintastrophe are we going to have with that sprayer….?
*dies*