Sunday, August 12, 2012

Painting Ceilings. It's the Pits.

After Day One of the kitchen painting projects, I can tell readers these two things:

1. "I really love painting ceilings" said no person ever.
2. I think I still have paint in my armpit.

The first one I googled. Seriously, I thought I'd find a blog post or an entire website, maybe, titled "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Paint in My Hair." The closest I came was "learning to love your popcorn ceilings," which is related, but under a different entry in the diagnostic manual for mental disorders.

The second, well, is absolutely true. I had paint in my armpit. It's not my fault. I had epic equipment failure. The $3.96 extension pole I bought for the paint roller was a total loser, and snapped off at the head while it was overhead, bringing my paint roller crashing to the floor.

The threaded extension for the paint roller was made of plastic, and snapped right off.
Yes, there are three colors going on in the background. No, it's better not to ask. 
If cameras had been rolling, they'd have seen me stick my butt out to the side (apparently trying to catch it with the largest part of my anatomy), and then catch the roller in a little chicken wing maneuver before it slipped out of my grasp (wing?) and fell to the floor. It was as least as graceful as this:


And yes, I felt like a (throws arms skyward) SUPERSTAR! With grace and an armpit involved, Mary Katherine Gallagher was the kindred spirit who came to mind.

Here's what I learned:

1. I did not buy ceiling paint off the shelf. I bought a custom tinted regular paint, and it's much less sloppy-runny-messy than ceiling paint. I may never buy ceiling paint again. It's totally worth the few extra dollars not to be tortured by the watery cursed stuff. Because of that, the actual painting went pretty well.

2. The Cream Delight by Valspar was exactly the right color for my ceilings (and it's going on my trim in the rest of the house too. Nice, creamy white.

3. This isn't something I learned so much as already knew: a paint project in one room inexplicably creates chaos in at least two other rooms. I've got kitchen crap piled in the living room, and a pile of satellite painting supplies cluttering up the dining room. Considering the ironing board had already been residing in the dining room (don't ask), it's not like I was a paragon of order to begin with. Heavy sigh.

4. With prep time, lost time because of aforementioned extension pole disaster (which meant I had to go up and down a ladder and move it a little each time), and a necessary clean up before supper time, I didn't get much more done than the ceiling on the first day. We'll see how far I manage to progress on Day 2.







1 comment:

  1. Um, uggh!! I know it's not on your radar now but take that stupid thing back for your three buck refund AND write the company. Maybe they make other better products that they'll send you coupons for. Good luck with day two!

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