I Painted Today.
I think by now the entire world knows that I should come with a warning label regarding painting. Like the one that says "drinking coffee is known to cause cancer in California" (so glad I don't live in California anymore).
My warning label is "this person is known to cause high levels of property damage and excessive use and waste while painting".
I'm a disaster. Proof of that is in the amount of paint on my body and clothing in addition to the paint brush and everything else in sight when I'm done.
I'm a waster. Remember the 5 gallon fence painting job that turned into 10 or 20?
So I had to paint this week. We painted the whole downstairs area of our house in May but stopped short of the stairs because that project looked tricky and we were almost out of paint.
OK fine I was hoping to convince my perfectionist people like Mike or my mom to do this part of the job for me.
The landlord seems to have agreed to put in new carpet in the house because we found out our current carpet and padding was actually the "turf" for some sort of doggie outhouse. The result was a stench that made me actually prefer inhaling gasoline or moldy cheese or honestly anything over the nastiness of the doggy wee-wee pad carpet.
Just in case you were wondering, no I didn't go to the walmarts in the middle of the night to get another urine light to shine on my carpet. Lesson learned. Not repeating that disaster.
So because I'm a tornado with a paint brush I thought it wise to finish painting before the new carpet is installed next week. We got paint all over this nasty carpet that we currently have but we totally didn't care because there was already paint on the carpet from somebody else's disaster. Now with new carpet in the future we are willing to admit our limitations and take care of the dirty business before pristine carpet enters the picture.
Oh dear, this is the longest introduction ever.
So I had to paint. I taped off the baseboards and got out the plastic sheeting to protect the carpet, just in case something happens and it isn't replaced.
Below is a photo of what can transpire when I get involved with paint.
Note the carpet edge is taped. Check.
The plastic is down. Check.... um why isn't the plastic covering the whole carpet instead of being wadded up in the middle of the stairs as if that is the only area that might potentially get dripped on?
Oh see because I laid the plastic out all over the stairs but as I moved along them it kept getting stuck to my feet and twisting up and then I slipped on carpet and fell down the stairs causing the rest of the plastic to spin around and end up like this.
Should I not mention that I attempted to stop myself from falling by grabbing the wall I just painted?
I painted the stairs and the ceiling and most of the upstairs hall. I ran out of paint about pint shy of completing the job. Shocker.
As I was looking over my work my eye was drawn to this one patch that has been untouched by the new paint. All the work, the slipping and falling, tedious task of taping off all the molding, cleaning up my mess as I went along, all that work felt totally worth it when I saw the difference between the ugly yellowish cream original color and the new, clean and warm "desert fortress".
A little part of me wants to keep that patch of ugly to remind myself how nice the new color is. Sometimes when all you can see is the shiny new stuff you forget what it used to look like.
It is easier to appreciate the new, the better, the healing, the recovery, the blessing, when you still have sight of the old, the weak, the pain, the struggle, the loss.
And that is my deep thought for the day.
Don't forget what the old paint looked like so you can truly appreciate the new.
My warning label is "this person is known to cause high levels of property damage and excessive use and waste while painting".
I'm a disaster. Proof of that is in the amount of paint on my body and clothing in addition to the paint brush and everything else in sight when I'm done.
I'm a waster. Remember the 5 gallon fence painting job that turned into 10 or 20?
So I had to paint this week. We painted the whole downstairs area of our house in May but stopped short of the stairs because that project looked tricky and we were almost out of paint.
OK fine I was hoping to convince my perfectionist people like Mike or my mom to do this part of the job for me.
The landlord seems to have agreed to put in new carpet in the house because we found out our current carpet and padding was actually the "turf" for some sort of doggie outhouse. The result was a stench that made me actually prefer inhaling gasoline or moldy cheese or honestly anything over the nastiness of the doggy wee-wee pad carpet.
Just in case you were wondering, no I didn't go to the walmarts in the middle of the night to get another urine light to shine on my carpet. Lesson learned. Not repeating that disaster.
So because I'm a tornado with a paint brush I thought it wise to finish painting before the new carpet is installed next week. We got paint all over this nasty carpet that we currently have but we totally didn't care because there was already paint on the carpet from somebody else's disaster. Now with new carpet in the future we are willing to admit our limitations and take care of the dirty business before pristine carpet enters the picture.
Oh dear, this is the longest introduction ever.
So I had to paint. I taped off the baseboards and got out the plastic sheeting to protect the carpet, just in case something happens and it isn't replaced.
Below is a photo of what can transpire when I get involved with paint.
Note the carpet edge is taped. Check.
The plastic is down. Check.... um why isn't the plastic covering the whole carpet instead of being wadded up in the middle of the stairs as if that is the only area that might potentially get dripped on?
Oh see because I laid the plastic out all over the stairs but as I moved along them it kept getting stuck to my feet and twisting up and then I slipped on carpet and fell down the stairs causing the rest of the plastic to spin around and end up like this.
Should I not mention that I attempted to stop myself from falling by grabbing the wall I just painted?
I painted the stairs and the ceiling and most of the upstairs hall. I ran out of paint about pint shy of completing the job. Shocker.
As I was looking over my work my eye was drawn to this one patch that has been untouched by the new paint. All the work, the slipping and falling, tedious task of taping off all the molding, cleaning up my mess as I went along, all that work felt totally worth it when I saw the difference between the ugly yellowish cream original color and the new, clean and warm "desert fortress".
A little part of me wants to keep that patch of ugly to remind myself how nice the new color is. Sometimes when all you can see is the shiny new stuff you forget what it used to look like.
It is easier to appreciate the new, the better, the healing, the recovery, the blessing, when you still have sight of the old, the weak, the pain, the struggle, the loss.
And that is my deep thought for the day.
Don't forget what the old paint looked like so you can truly appreciate the new.
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