As I was painting the trim around the bathroom doorways yesterday—a job, mind you, that I had begun with some amount of excitement—my attitude changed. By the time I said goodbye to that task on my ‘To Do’ list, the following things happened:
- I became aware that my quick job would be not so quick. The original trim is a sage green color and the white wasn’t going to conquer it without attacking twice. OH, JOY!
But the guy at the paint store said I’d only need one coat! - Sadly, I realized that I was going to have to actually CLEAN the area first. Dust bunnies on the top ledges and around the sides wouldn’t run away when a brush approached; instead they were going for a ride! With both embarrassment at the amount of bunnies I hadn’t notices and irritation that I couldn’t just jump in to paint, I put aside the painting tools and got out the cleaning tools. RATS! (I will NOT show you a picture of the dust bunnies!)
- I’m not a professional painter (duh) and although I THOUGHT surely I could paint some freaking trim without botching it, my paintbrush seemed to have a mind of its own. It dripped, left streaks, too often visited the wall around its target, and generally failed me miserably.
No, I had not invested in a ‘quality’ brush. Those know-it-alls online giving tips about painting sent me the strong message: “First, do-it-yourselfer, use a QUALITY brush! You’ll be sorry if you don’t.” OK, OK, DON”T BE SO OBNOXIOUS ABOUT IT!
- My cat Simba occasionally meowed from other rooms. Since he’s currently having behavioral issues and seems intent on marking spots with foul smelling pee spray. I had to stop painting from time to time and follow my nose to the likely area of his latest gift. Once there I used my trusty UV light to find the spot and then zapped it with my super-duper odor remover. After doing that twice, I decided to have a beer. YAY!
By now you probably understand why I cut this DIY project short, deciding instead to move on to DIY project #2 on my list—purge the upstairs hall closet (after a break to enjoy my beer, of course). That seemed to be something I could accomplish without making a mess, right?
I began putting away the paint supplies and immediately dropped the can of white paint because the paint I’d let drip on the sides was slippery. Luckily I had a plastic sheet on the floor, but the paint still splattered on some other DIY supplies nearby as well as on the shoes I’d taken off so that I wouldn’t get paint on them.
- My sweatpants and tee shirt and hair were targets too. The clothes already had spots on them, and come to think of it my hair already had white streaks in it, too. 😉 I tried to recover as much of the giant paint puddle on the plastic as I could and return it to the bucket. I rolled up the plastic for disposal. I scrubbed paint off my hands and arms and left the bathroom in a worse state than it had been in before I started.
I decided to chill out and ‘ohmmmmmm’ a bit first before tackling the next job—maybe rewatch some of the awesome 4th quarter of the last Warriors game to make me feel better.
But before I completely left that bathroom, I turned to take in the disaster behind me and I flipped it the bird.
And THAT definitely made me feel better.
HEH. 
Haha! Now I know why I pay people to do this stuff for me! A reminder that the last time I painted I fell off of the step stool ladder thingy, landing in my paint pan in my bare feet! Then I tracked paint all across the plastic sheet to get to my towel!
Yeah, it’s a comedy of errors, for sure. I’ll scrape out coins from my piggy bank before I try to do a good job painting trim around the doors,I’ll tell you that. All that white in my hair is NOT from the paint, by the way. 😉 Love you!