When Tom and I got married nearly eleven years ago, one of our “unofficial” vows was that we’d never hang wallpaper together. Still haven’t. Flirted with it putting a space shuttle border up in A’s room three years ago, but we agreed that wallpaper would never happen.
Painting is another story. When we bought our first place, a second floor condo, we spent an entire summer painting it. This was back in the dark ages, when we were both teachers. We thought that was tough. Ha.
Now we have kids. Not just any kids, but curious, excitable, love to be in the center of everything, kids. Wait…that’s redundant. And painting has taken on a whole new excitement.
Will A try to “help” to the point of creating more work for us?
Will J sit in the hallway and play or come grab me and get covered in paint? (Or find the only screwdriver small enough to stick into the only electrical plug uncovered? True, he really did it, can’t believe we’re not planning a funeral today).
Will I get completely and totally high off the paint fumes while painting the inside of the bathroom closet and will I really give a damn?
We’ve been painting our bedroom and bathroom this weekend. What, don’t you use your holiday weekend every year to paint or otherwise work on the house? Cheaper than driving anywhere this year. But our house is torn apart; stuff in A’s room (so he has to shack up with J, which makes for no one sleeping), stuff in Tom’s office, stuff in the living room downstairs, and general chaos. Now, to give you an idea of how nutso it has been around here, I started writing this post on Saturday afternoon and it is now late Tuesday evening.
But I learned a few things from this year’s paint job.
Painting is very Zen. There is no rushing a good paint job. You rush it, you have the results of your impatience staring you in the face for years. So you just concentrate on the slow movement of the brush, on making a straight line on the trim, on not passing out from breathing in the paint fumes while painting the bottom of the bathroom closet.
Prince is the best rocker to paint by. Michael Jackson is the worst.
The woman at Home Depot who gave us the tip on how to get a straight line on knockdown walls (and, by the way, whoever the jackass was who came up with this cheap-ass wall texture should be made to paint straight lines by hand for all eternity) and how to paint behind the toilet deserves a medal. We’ve never had such perfect walls.
I’m so glad we’re done. Now I’m catching up on life: laundry, bills, emails, other home improvements. And sleep, glorious sleep.