Painting 101

We messed up big time. When we bought this house, I decided I wanted to paint. At first I wanted to paint every room, but Husband talked me down from that disaster. We compromised and decided we'd paint our room and Baby's room and leave everything else as is for now. We went to Lowe's on Sunday night. I imagined a soft khaki color for Baby's room, something soothing and peaceful and not overstimulating. Baby's room is now orange. I'm not quite sure how we came to that decision, but it happened after we eliminated khaki, red and an orange/blue combo because I told Husband "My baby is not having a UVA room. At least not yet. If he wants a UVA room when he's eight, fine, but right now, my baby is not having a UVA room."
Husband and I spent an hour in Lowe's picking out paint and supplies. On Monday morning I started prepping Baby's room. The first thing I did was tape up half a window. Then I slapped some paint on the wall to test the color. Since the color we're painting the room is darker than the old color, I wanted to see if we could get away with not priming the room. I waited for the paint to dry, then consulted Husband. We were in agreement that no priming was necessary. Husband set to work while I watched Baby (he's decided, once again, that sleep is for losers). He worked for awhile, and then we switched responsibilities. I painted, and painted, and painted. I stood in the middle of the room to inspect my work and almost cried. Some parts of the wall were rust colored. Some were tangerine. Some were still the soft yellow from the room's previous occupant. I could see where the roller had stopped and started. Clearly, I had done something wrong. I was discouraged, but I continued to paint. As I painted I realized that part of the problem was due to the paint going on light and drying darker. I couldn't tell which spots needed to be repainted and which spots were in the process of drying.
Since I wasn't really painting with any sort of focus or plan anyway, Husband went ahead and started doing the edges of the room: around the windows, door, and ceiling. Since we'd bought one of those nifty edger things that are occasionally advertised on TV, we didn't bother to tape much. We figured the edger would prevent paint from getting on the window trim and ceiling. We figured wrong. The trim in Baby's room is still white, at least most of it is. Same with the ceiling.
We let the paint dry and busied ourselves with other house chores, like testing out our cable. For eight hours straight.
When I inspected the room again, I noticed several different shades of orange on Baby's walls, especially where the edger sections ended and the roller sections began. Panicked, I found Husband watching Top Chef and bouncing Baby on his knee. "Something ain't right," I told him.
"Huh?" he replied. "Look, they're cooking alligator."
"Ooooh." I sat down and watched the rest of the episode of Top Chef. Three hours later, I showed Husband my concerns. "See, over there, it's like four different shades of orange. And it's streaky. It just doesn't look good."
"Oh. Those are all the parts I painted," he said.
"No, no, no, I think it's just because we didn't prime it. It's going on all uneven. And apparently orange paint doesn't cover up pencil marks."
"Just keep painting," he instructed. "You're doing a better job than I did."
The more I painted, the more even the color became until there were only a few large areas that needed to be filled in. I sent Husband to the store to get a small roller so I could work on blending in the areas where the edger and roller parts met. I told him that running out of paint was a distinct possibility, but he told me to make do. Jen was coming the next day, and we wanted to have the room done before she came. He came back from Lowe's with the small roller, and I promptly ran out of paint.
The next day, Husband went and got another gallon of "Field Poppy." After Jen left, I happily got back to painting. I worked for about an hour, then decided it was time for a dinner/Jeopardy break. I'd noticed, while I was painting, that the paint from the new bucket seemed a bit lighter than the paint from the old bucket, but I figured it just needed to dry. When I inspected my progress after eating Pizza Rolls and TGI Friday's frozen popcorn chicken, I swore. And swore. And swore. The work I'd done, thinking I was getting closer to finishing Baby's room, set me back several hours. Not only did the new bucket of paint go on lighter, it also dried lighter than the original. I compared the labels on the top and everything was the same, except for the store number. I compared the color splashes that the Lowe's employees had put on the top of the can, and the second was significantly lighter. Each wall had huge patches from where I thought I was blending and evening out the paint. I dreaded telling Husband and very slowly walked the ten feet from Baby's room to the living room.
"Look, they're cooking rattlesnake," he told me. Then he saw the dejected/angry look on my face. "What's wrong?"
"I think the paint in the new bucket is the wrong color," I said.
Husband swore. And swore. And swore. Then he got up to inspect the room and swore some more. "What time does Lowe's close?" he asked.
"Um, ten?"
"Okay, put Baby in his carseat. Let's go. I'm not spending another day painting. We're going back to the first Lowe's and making sure we get the right color, then we're going to come home and finish painting. We've spent four fucking days doing this, and we've got too much to do to spend another day on it." As soon as he said that, I thought: But I wanted to watch The Office and 30 Rock. I was smart enough not to say it.
We drove to Lowe's with a screaming baby and spent 20 minutes getting yet another bucket of paint and questioning the Lowe's employee about quality control. After driving a screaming baby home and putting a screaming baby to bed, we got back to the painting. We had to throw away everything that had the wrong color on it and find new rollers and paint trays. We worked for a couple hours, then I gave up and went to bed. Husband said he'd stay up and finish, on the condition that I agreed to no more painting the next day. I reluctantly agreed since I was so tired.
The next morning, Husband said, "I finished the room last night. When you go in there, you're going to see some uneven parts, but you're just going to have to live with it. We have to move on." I went in, and I did see some spots, but I decided I could live with it. We celebrated the room being done by taking a two hour nap, where I tricked Baby into going to sleep. Later that afternoon, we took the tape off the trim and admired our handiwork. As I pulled the last strips of tape off of the last wall, swear words once again left my mouth. When I taped the trim, I taped garbage bags to the bottom part of the wall, painted, then moved the garbage bags down to the edge of the trim, in order to avoid having orange paint splatter on the wood floor. Apparently, I forgot to retape one section of the wall. Husband saw it and told me that there would be no touching up of the wall anytime soon. We are going to have to learn to live with three walls that are fine and one that's almost fine.
I learned many important lessons during this painting project.
1. Husband and I will not be painting our bedroom any time soon. Sure it's lavender, a color no self-respecting man would choose, but as Husband rationalized, it's okay because he didn't choose it. It was already there.
2. The nifty edger thingies don't work all that well.
3. Primer is important. I can't stress this enough, people.
4. I keep seeing a commercial for Scotch Painter's Tape. The couple in the commercial is so happy and pleased to be painting and pleased with their results. This commercial enrages me. Their orange wall looks great.
5. Taping is also important. Tape EVERYTHING.
6. I'm not painting again for a long, long, long time. I hope Baby likes orange.
I will post photos of my fuck up once I find the camera cord. That might be awhile.