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First....you must understand that it's been an expensive year (new roof, a radon remediation system, new tires, Disney vacation...) so when I decided I wanted to do some inside painting, I naively chose to do some of it myself. In a knee-bone-connected-to-the-ankle-bone kind of scenario, all of this began with my roof. In order to replace the roof, I had to remove the satellite dish, which was fine because I needed to reverse engineer the nest of wires making up my 'entertainment system' because the TV wasn't working. To do that, I had to get behind the heavy entertainment unit and if I was going to do that, well, I may as well remove the carpet and paint the floor -- been thinking about that for five years. So I do all that, and then discover the floor is connected to the walls and now suddenly I want new walls because, well, now's the perfect time while all the furniture is out of the room.
It took all day today to accomplish a painted ceiling, only a portion of which was actually spent painting as every do-it-your-selfer knows. My proud moments were figuring out how to remove the trim on recessed lights, flipping over the blades on the ceiling fan and not getting paint in my hair. I learned I have "eyeball lights" in the process of googling to see how to remove the trim (God I love the internet; who needs help?!). But I'm a little creeped out now knowing there are two eyeballs overhead watching my lazy bon-bon eating ass when I binge watch hours of NCIS or Dangerous Catch.
The painting was less fun than anticipated. It's not a zen activity at all. Between circling those seven recessed lights, putting white paint over white paint, and paint that dried very fast, I frequently got both dizzy and lost. This led to a mid-day trip to the hardware store for more paint because coat number one wasn't a complete success. I managed to be more methodical on coat number two. This morning, I'm ready to reinstall the lighting trim and it seems I'm missing three of the springs that hold the trim up. Sigh. I'm hoping they stayed attached inside the cans when they came down because I sure haven't seen springs on the loose anywhere.
Theoretically, I'm painting the walls today. I already know that it will be a 3-coat process according to Mr. Benjamin Moore since I'm going from a dark color to a light one (he even tested it). I'm maintaining my determination and optimism but I'm going to go have a trail run first and see if deep-breathing forest air changes my mind. In one week, there will be real painters here to do the living room, foyer, stairs, hallway.... I got professionals for that because even this intrepid DIY-er [cheapskate] won't engineer some kind of platform to get that spot above the stairs. They could knock out my family room walls in no time -- and get a clean edge without blue tape. And I could start thinking about my next project -- the back entryway -- because in true form, the family room is connected to the entryway and now it's looking tired too.
It took all day today to accomplish a painted ceiling, only a portion of which was actually spent painting as every do-it-your-selfer knows. My proud moments were figuring out how to remove the trim on recessed lights, flipping over the blades on the ceiling fan and not getting paint in my hair. I learned I have "eyeball lights" in the process of googling to see how to remove the trim (God I love the internet; who needs help?!). But I'm a little creeped out now knowing there are two eyeballs overhead watching my lazy bon-bon eating ass when I binge watch hours of NCIS or Dangerous Catch.
The painting was less fun than anticipated. It's not a zen activity at all. Between circling those seven recessed lights, putting white paint over white paint, and paint that dried very fast, I frequently got both dizzy and lost. This led to a mid-day trip to the hardware store for more paint because coat number one wasn't a complete success. I managed to be more methodical on coat number two. This morning, I'm ready to reinstall the lighting trim and it seems I'm missing three of the springs that hold the trim up. Sigh. I'm hoping they stayed attached inside the cans when they came down because I sure haven't seen springs on the loose anywhere.
Theoretically, I'm painting the walls today. I already know that it will be a 3-coat process according to Mr. Benjamin Moore since I'm going from a dark color to a light one (he even tested it). I'm maintaining my determination and optimism but I'm going to go have a trail run first and see if deep-breathing forest air changes my mind. In one week, there will be real painters here to do the living room, foyer, stairs, hallway.... I got professionals for that because even this intrepid DIY-er [cheapskate] won't engineer some kind of platform to get that spot above the stairs. They could knock out my family room walls in no time -- and get a clean edge without blue tape. And I could start thinking about my next project -- the back entryway -- because in true form, the family room is connected to the entryway and now it's looking tired too.