We bought a house back in December, 2020. The interior needed to be painted. There were other priorities, and interruptions, but finally a couple of months ago we were ready to start slinging paint. We had the usual discussion about whether we should do this ourselves, or hire someone. Hire someone? Are you crazy? This is paint, not rocket science. Since when were we “those people” who could afford to hire a painter? We’ve got this! We waffled over color and satin vs semi-gloss, but finally came to an agreement and set out to gather supplies.
What came next was the realization that there is a reason painters get paid so much. Do painters even like to paint? Has painting always been hard, or is it just because we’re older now, and a lot of things are hard? I do know that painting the ceiling is something to be dreaded while being endured. It’s safe to say if you are painting the ceiling you are going to need more than a couple of aspirins. At the very least when buying tarps, paint brushes, rollers, and paint you need to throw in an ice pack or two. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to find out how much it is to hire someone to just paint the ceiling? After crunching the numbers we concluded, “Not happening. We can do this.”
We’re chunking it down. Not trying to paint the whole house in a weekend. Starting with the master bath, we did not declare it done until all the trim work was complete as well. That took a bit longer than we expected. Okay, a lot longer, but there were learning curves. That’s the very reason I wanted to start in a room that doesn’t get seen by a lot of people. I figured by the time we get to the more common rooms in the house we would be experts at it. I’m hoping we’re a whole lot faster at it too. There is chunking down and then there is painstakingly slow! We need to step it up! After all, this isn’t a government road construction project! 2021 doesn’t need to turn into 2022 before we’re done!
I asked my sister, who paints her house quite often, for advice on brushes, how to get clean edges, stuff like that. She had a lot of advice and even more encouragement, but when I mentioned the doors were six panel she was oddly silent and just said, “Oh”. After painting, and repainting, and trying several different techniques, adding some colorful language to my brush strokes to soak up some frustration I called her back. Confronting her about her silence on the subject she said, “They’re hard. I didn’t want to discourage you.” That was kind of her, but a word of warning might have been good. I thought they were going to be a breeze. I could have painted the bathroom twice in the amount of time it took me to do those doors!
We were proud of how the master bathroom turned out and decided to move on to the hall bathroom. Our thoughts were that we could knock this room out fairly quickly based on size alone. Quick gratification would be a big win for us. Because it’s small we wouldn’t be able to work as a team, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t help. I removed all the wall decor, helped take down all the hardware, and removed the rugs. My husband, Kim, was now free to paint the ceiling. One of the lamp covers broke on the vanity light fixture. Swell! I went to work on the internet to order a replacement. I could find it nowhere! Are you kidding?! It wasn’t unusual, but we had no choice. We’d have to replace the entire fixture. Okay, not the end of the world. I narrowed the search by price. Anything over $110 was deemed extravagant. It’s a bathroom, not the centerpiece of my living room. If you’re in the bathroom long enough to critique the lighting you’ve been in there too long!
It was right about that time that I heard some pretty weighty swearing coming from the bathroom. I knew this was more serious than Kim dropping a gallon of paint on the floor. I could hear it in his voice. Something bad had happened! Really bad! He wasn’t screaming, so I deduced he wasn’t hurt. I considered for a second or two if I really wanted to find out what happened or not. Cautiously I got up. Peering in everything looked fine, but looks can be deceiving. Upon closer inspection I could see that the foot of the ladder had punched a significant hole in the bathtub! Well, at least Kim had finished painting the ceiling.
I did what everyone does when faced with a crisis, I turned to YouTube. “I wonder if we can fix this ourselves?” Turns out “you” can. Turns out “we can’t”! I watched a lengthy video which included a sander, layers of fiberglass, two separate concoctions of stuff I have no idea what it was, buffing, and more goo. I didn’t need to watch the entire thing to know this was way out of our ballpark! What we needed was a plumber and a new bathtub. Our painting job had just become a remodel job!
Replacing a bathtub might not be hard, but plumbers, besides being expensive are busy. What was needed for this job was a boatload of cash and more patience than I have. But when you’re in over your head you have no choice except wait. Since I don’t wait well we’ll shift gears and paint the guest room. What could possibly go wrong in there?