Ok, so the plan was simple.
I was headed to The House of Goodwill by myself last week, two days
before the rest of my family was to join me.
The idea was, I could paint the master bedroom without distraction, and
be SO productive. Oh, the things I could
get done in 2 days! It was going to be
amazing.
That is UNTIL my fateful stop at the local hardware store
that sells paint (which shall remain unnamed, for purposes of goodwill.)
And this is where the non-comedy starts. Always, in the past, when I have purchased
paint from a Lowe’s or Home Depot store, the last thing done by the employees
was a color check of the paint before they handed me the cans to take to check
out.
At this unnamed hardware store that sells paint, the paint
guy went off to mix my paint out of sight.
When he returned with my two gallons of paint, I paid (A LOT – I have
learned small towns = higher prices) and left.
On day number one I discovered that the ladder my husband
had previously brought to the house was NOT my painting stepladder. (It was a 50 pound ladder that I dragged up a
spiral staircase by myself, only to discover there was no way I could use it.)
the dark bedroom before
No matter, I would start painting the edges and corners of
the room and save the higher up places for the next day, when my husband and
son were coming and could bring me my stepladder.
Day 1 = 3 coats of paint on edges and corners of lower 2/3
of room. This took until 9pm.
day 1 "progress" - at least it's lightening up a little
On day 2 I got up, and decided to roll the walls until my
family arrived with the ladder. So I
rolled two coats of paint, and prepared to do a third with the second gallon of
paint.
And here was the problem: when I opened the second gallon of
paint, it was a completely different color than the first can. (And it was gray! The color I was trying to cover up!)
this is what we call a bad surprise
I called my husband (who was on his way to the house) to see
if he could stop at the paint store and pick up a gallon in the right color so
I could finish. It was about 3pm. He called me back two minutes later to tell me that the
store had closed at 2pm, and wouldn’t be open again until Monday morning. (It was Saturday.)
So I had spent two days painting, and gotten only 2/3
done. And I didn’t have any more paint
till I could go back to the store.
“It’s like A Comedy of Errors,” commented my husband (who
had NOT wasted the last two days). My
response – “This is the opposite of a comedy.”
Fast forward to Monday morning. I was back at the paint store, where the
paint department (ie. the paint guy) was baffled as to how my two cans of paint
were different colors. After 20 minutes,
he told me he had figured out the problem, one of the tubes in the paint mixing
machine that adds tint to the paint was not working. But he was currently too busy to fix it and
could I stop back later?
So I stopped back later, and the paint department let me
know he had continued to be so slammed he did not have the chance to fix it,
and could I come back to tomorrow?
Note: tomorrow would be four days after I had started
painting this one room.
Now it’s tomorrow, and my husband stops by the paint store
for me to pick up the paint. The paint
department still did not have it ready and he said he would deliver it to our
house when he got it ready, which he did later that afternoon.
Note: I realized after painting 2/3 of the room that I did
not need a whole (expensive) second gallon of paint to finish the room, but the
store does not sell ½ gallons of paint.
Therefore he brought me two quarter gallons of paint to finish the
room. Do you see where this is going?
So, desperately hoping to (FINALLY) finish this (one) room,
I opened the first quarter gallon of paint and rolled a third coat, only it
wasn’t quite enough to coat all four walls.
I also noticed upon opening this can that it was a slightly different
(close, but darker) shade of the color than the first gallon I had put on the
wall, but no matter, since I had two new cans at least the final coat on
everything would match.
I opened the second quarter gallon of paint to finish. Can you guess what I saw? Yes, you are correct, the second quarter
gallon did not match the first quarter gallon. (Which did not match the first
gallon.) (And I am out of ideas of how this happened; apparently their paint
machine is still off.)
And if I had just bought a second full gallon (instead of
two quarters), however off the color might have been, it would have been enough
to cover all four walls and corners and edges, and everything would have been
the same.
So what was I supposed to do? I was NOT starting over.
Long story short, I had just enough in the first quarter can
to paint the edges and corners on the three walls I had rolled with it. I had just enough from the first gallon can
to finish the edges and corners in the bathroom area where I had painted from
that can. Then I used the second quarter
can to roll and paint edges on the final fourth wall.
So three walls are one variation of the color, one wall is
another, and the bathroom area is another.
And fortunately, although if I had tried to mix the cans
together on one wall, the slight color variations would have been obvious, when
the shades completely covered the walls all the way to the edges, it’s hard to
tell that they vary slightly from wall to wall.
If one notices, he or she may attribute it to shadows.
The problem is, I always like to save a little paint for
future touch ups. (And there was no
leftover paint.) But I have three
different shades in different places, and not one of the paint cans actually
contained the color I was attempting to paint.
(Because of the tinting part of the machine still being slightly
off.) So good luck to future Phoebe on
that one!
Ah, small towns.
Fortunately there is one other hardware store that also happens to sell
paint. (Same size paint department,
though.)
It only took me five days to get the room done. (And this does NOT count covering all the
dark molding. I still have to do that. This was the “easy” part.) I’ve already been frustrated about how slow
this project has been going. I am still
working on patience. Let’s just hope
it’s not a portent for how the rest of the project will go…
**Note: I forgot to take an after photo! I finished this room and had to leave right after. I will add the photo when I get back to the house again.
