The non-comedy of errors

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.