Thursday, October 3, 2013

No pain, no gain



Remember when you could look at an averaged-size bathroom and think, "I could paint that in a couple of hours?"  Ever since we have lived in this house for the past 18 years, I have asked Howard to build me some shelves over the toilet for storage.  We needed more storage.

Since he retired, he is trying to go through his list of "honey dos" and thought he'd knock this one out in a hurry.

He cut boards and support pieces. I looked at that wall and thought, "It would be a shame to put those shelves up when it really needs painting in here.  And it would be a lot harder if the shelves were up and I had to paint around them."

Notice I said I.  He builds, and I paint. When we moved out here, he built or had built, a barn for me because we still had horses. He found a deal on tin, painted different colors, blue, tan, red. It was my job to paint it.  And 18 years ago I painted a horse barn.  Those days are over.

I had a lovely robin's egg blue left over from the living room project, so I thought I'd paint the alcove around the tub in that color. I chose a nice Tea Biscuit color for the rest of the room.

So last Saturday the project began.  I took everything out of the bathroom and noticed how dirty the fan, light fixture in the ceiling looked.  That appliance is affectionately known as a "fart fan" by my middle child.  Where did I go wrong?

So we took it down, and YUCK.  I cleaned and bleached. The cover had yellowed so it had to be spray painted.  We are an hour into the project and no paint has hit the wall.

I start cutting in around the ceiling, and yes, I know I told my friend Terry, my doctor, and my children I wouldn't paint anymore.  Guess that makes sense considering I have chronic joint pain and just finished a round of physical therapy.  Can't let a little thing like that stop you.

Climbing up on the stool, I noticed paint on the floor.  I couldn't believe that I hadn't started painting and there were already splotches on the floor leading from the bathroom into the bedroom.  I check my shoes, yelled at Howard.  Then it hit me.  The Silkies (the silky terrorists).  I checked one, and no paint on the paws.  I checked the other, and yes she had stepped in the paint and pranced all over the bedroom with her miniature hairy Chewbacca-looking paws.

I had to clean her up and then scrub all the paw prints off the floor before you-know-who saw them.  Hour, two, no paint on the wall.

Finally about three hours later, I had one coat on the entire bathroom and two coats on the area where the shelves were going.  Then I had to go outside and paint shelves.

I was getting really tired by this time. I climbed back on my stool inside the bathtub and stood with one foot on each side of the tub to do the cutting in with the Amelia blue.  When I stepped back on the stool, I slipped and fell inside the bathtub.  I quit.   Project to be continued after sleep.

The next day I finished the second coat on all surfaces and touched up all places that were pointed out to me that I had skipped.  (errrrr)

We hung the shelves and stepped back.

Look how beautiful my sister-in-law's (Robbie Boyd) Tuscan painting looks against the blue.  And the shelves look good too, I guess.

Still there is touching up to do around the ceiling with an art brush where I got blue on the ceiling.
Pretty good job on a 12-hour project that should have taken two.  Was it worth it?

Just look at that painting!

PS:  My Mac is in the hospital and I'm using Olivia's laptop, thus can't download pics from my good camera.  Excuse the iPhone photos. They just don't do the colors justice.  Hoping for a speedy recovery for her (the computer).




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