Painting

What were Mike and I thinking when we decided to paint the interior of our house??? Why didn't anyone tell us to HIRE PAINTERS?

We began painting the kitchen Wed morning - well actually around 1:00 - I think we were trying to delay it as long as possible. We had all of the supplies, old clothes and full tummies. (Part of our delay included having lunch!) It went pretty well and I was surprised that I got very little paint on myself. Mike and I used to manage apt buildings in Seattle and when painting vacant apts, we would usually wind up pretty painted by the end of the day. But maybe we've gotten smarter - or slower - in our painting technique.

And then Jake showed up. Jake is re-texturizing the walls of our bathrooms (they were wallpapered) and once Jake finishes his work we have to prime the walls prior to painting. Ugh. Priming AND THEN painting? Double ugh.

Jake did his thing while we finished painting the guest room. I remember thinking...“not bad, 2 rooms fully painted in 1 day…” And then we woke up this morning.

We looked at our lovely kitchen and guest room and the paint job looked HORRIBLE!!! Sooooooo bad. Even though we are painting white on white, the new paint did not seem to cover the old paint. So back to Home Depot for a paint upgrade.

I started in on the kitchen (again) with the new and improved paint product and I could tell right off the bat that it was not going to do the trick. After a short crying bout, I went to a small paint store and described to the salesperson what was happening. As it turns out, our original paint is extra high gloss (AVOID THIS AT ALL COSTS!) and we would need to prime the entire house in order to get the new paint to adhere well. UGH and NO WAY!

So tomorrow we have 2 painters coming to provide bids to paint our house. What a relief – we don’t have to paint any more - yippee!

The moral of this story is: if you are not an expert, do not attempt to do an expert’s work. It may cost more in time and $$, but you will save in the frustration dept. And now I can go to sleep…