Painted (Ma)Lady
Q: How many people does it take to paint a bathroom?
A: As many as you like, so long as none of them are me.
DS spent last week in Florida with his nanny and her husband. He was gone for 7 days, and I needed something distract myself for a full week. I was on my last week of break from school, and I was working every day, so the project had to be simple, swift, and productive. I talked it over with Howard, and we opted to paint the bathroom. It’s small, it’s enclosed, so there’s less chance of the mess spilling over into other rooms, and since we use it every day, there was added motivation to finish the project on time.
Since we had the time, I decided that it might be fun to be a little daring. Oh, the hubris of the untalented. I have no artistic talent. None. I admire artistic things, but from a safe and outsider’s distance. Painting, music, dance, and even theater are all delights to me, but only as a spectator. I know this about myself, yet I forgot all about it when I opted to sponge-paint my bathroom.
Or, at least, I remembered long enough to call my brother, who is an artist and who does have talents for color and style. Howard and I got him on the phone on December 30, just a few hours after DS had boarded a plane to Tampa. We directed my brother to the paint palette site and showed him the colors we’d chosen. After a few ‘ewwww!’ responses from him, he suggested a 3-color combination that appeared to be just shy of Utterly Insane. Where Howard and I had picked Whispered Peach, Brother opted for Blood Orange, paired with Rhubarb and Vanilla Milkshake. Purple, Orange and Sugared White. Dear God.
But, he is an artist and I am not. I trusted the artist and committed to try. We loaded up with supplies and a full gallon of the Blood Orange. We brushed the cut in and then rolled the first coat, and when we were done, I wasn’t sure whether I was standing in the center of a volcano or had been relocated to Middle Earth. The once gray-green white vanished beneath Bursting Sunset, and the color was so vivid and bright that it reflected all the way down the steps and in to the living room. I gulped away my nerves and Howard comforted me in a voice that had only slightly less tremor than my own. Don’t worry. This is just the base coat. It’ll be covered with white and purple. Excuse me. Rhubarb.
When it came time to sponge the Milkshake over the Inferno, the effort seemed suddenly too large, and we opted to do ragging instead. Ragging involves clumping up some piece of cloth (in this case, Howard’s undershirts), dipping it into the paint tray and then stamping it all over the walls. The ragging leaves a more interesting mark than the sponge, and so we tore up a group of shirts and set to work. This was Monday night, New Year’s Eve.
When we were finished, the Blood Orange had given way to Melting Dreamsicle. The orange, while muted, was still there, curdling the walls in every child’s ice cream nightmare. The echoing down the hall had dimmed, but the white looked sloppy on top of the orange, and there were now smudges of both paints on the trim. The drop cloth had torn and there was a dragon-shaped stain next to the tub. I called my brother, concern seeping through my forced laughter. “It’s in the blending,’ he assured me. “And ragging is nicer than sponging. I figured you would like that better.”
Well, ‘better’ is a relative term. It was ‘better’ than feeling like I was showing in utero, but I was far from satisfied. But commitment is commitment, and we still the Rhubarb. One more coat to go.
Brother had suggested we build the Rhubarb in stalk-like extensions from the floor to ceiling. I couldn’t figure out how to make a stalk with a bunched up underwear clump, and anyway, there was still way too much orange showing. I opted for full coverage, banging the rag against the walls to blot out the orange and mix with the white. Howard, on the other side of the bathroom, gave the Stalk idea its full due and make literal purple stripes up and down the walls.
Once completed with the Rhubarb and the bathroom “finished”, I could barely keep from crying. The purple clashed with the orange, the white had all but vanished, and we had Rhubarb on the stepladder, the sink and dripping down the shower stall. I knew I could never make it a full year with my bathroom in such a state. I called Brother.
On his instructions, we diluted the remaining Milkshake 2:1 with water and then rolled it over the whole wall. It would be like a glaze, he said. It would tone everything down and even the color out.
Wednesday afternoon, with hope and paint supplies waning, we diluted the white, loaded up our rollers and set to work. Apparently my talents for stirring do not extend to paint, because the dilution left the combination runny, and no amount of squeezing the roller would fix it. Howard gave up rolling and took to mopping up the puddles. About halfway through, I looked back at our work and tossed my roller down. “It looks like we’re painting over wallpaper,” I said. Howard agreed. It was a disaster.
Sadly, our work had left its mark in places not intended. Stray bits of Blood Orange had made its way past the painter’s tape and on to the ceiling. Howard had attempted to sponge off some of it, but that only managed to widen the stains. I knew that we’d have to do the ceiling anyway. Today was not that day for sure, and so while the stains rankled me, they would have to remain.
Thursday night, 5 days after our little project began, Howard bought home cans of primer. We figured, correctly, that no amount of any color would dilute the Citrus Explosion growing on the walls, and so we would simply start over. I thought, briefly, that perhaps painting the walls white would be enough. We could stop there, and just leave it until it was time to paint again, post-new bathroom.
Ah, but The Project That Will Never End had other ideas. We needed 2 coats of primer to get the blood and the rhubarb off the walls. Plus, the Stark White of the primer threw me back to every cheap rental I’d ever lived in, where every wall was White, Oh So White, and the trim hinted at way too many coats of ‘just slap it on before the next move-in’. I couldn’t leave it.
Friday night, after Primer coat #2 went up, we drove out to Lowe’s and picked up another gaggle of chips. We settled Saturday morning on Whispered Peach, a color remarkable close to the original color we’d chosen before the Artist’s Hangover took to our walls. We bought 2 gallons, new rollers, and brushes specifically designed for latex paint. Our trim and cut-in work was awful-there were brush marks everywhere, and no amount of paint-loading or brush-scraping seemed to fix it. We ‘invested’ in good brushes, complete with their own post-project holders, hoping that this, at least, would solve one of our myriad problems.
Nope.
The Peach went on lovely, subtly and smooth. Howard and I have no talent at this, though, and so the ceiling got its new stains of muted dawn to duel with the fruit salad. I did the cut-in work twice, the second time with a wedged sponge, and still the brush marks remained. By now, on Saturday morning, with DS due to return the following night and now SIX days into what should have been a 2-day project, I couldn’t focus on the pretty.
We got 2 coats up by Sunday morning, and then set about cleaning up the biggest spills. Howard replaced the bathroom mirror and then dug holes into the wall trying to put up our new medicine chest. While he cursed his way through anchors and drywall, I grabbed hold of a tape end and pulled. And that’s when I discovered that paint is a lot like nail polish. If you have 2 or 3 coats, you need acetone to take it off. If, however, you have 7, all you need to do is pluck off a corner and the whole nail peels off without effort.
Chips, chunks and slabs of pale orange peeled off with the tape, sometimes removing every coat we’d layered in the last week and showing the hospital gray-green white that the room had been Before. Howard used a box cutter on the niche areas, and I did my best to pull straight and even, but still, there are holes in the paint, and all of them are in obvious, can’t-hide-this-mess places.
The ceiling is a smudged orange, and somehow, the Blood color managed to seep up under the tape, so that there is a thin line of Raging Sunset along the lip of the ceiling in half the room. The tub looks like a cauldron of stewed vegetables and the shower stall is nothing short of melting-vegetable surrealism. After the last tape clump had been stuffed into the trash, I stood at the doorway entrance and shook my head. “We have destroyed this room,” I told Howard. “Yes,” he replied, “We have.”
I admit that I did distract myself while DS was gone. And with respect to the Universe, this is nothing. We’re not starving to death. Our home hasn’t been burned by the Junta, and even my Christmas indiscretion matters little at the macro level. We’re healthy, we’re all back together, and I got it done in time to delve into Principles of Financial Accounting, which started today.
Howard took a bigger approach, noting that we learned priceless lessons. We are plain, simple people when it comes to decoration. The blood-rhubarb-milkshake would have worked with someone talented who had hours to rag and sponge the walls Just So, but that is not us. We should have stuck with the creamy Hint O’Color that we’d chosen originally and left it at that. And in the mean time, we chose a small, self-enclosed room to showcase our fubar. We didn’t pain the kitchen, none of the cats fainted from the fumes, and now, more or less, it’s over.
DS did recognize all the changes, and spent quite a bit of time in the bathroom cataloging what was new. That helped, but more to recognize that he was aware of the changes, something he wouldn’t have noticed a year ago. I’m glad for that, though I would have preferred to discover this by adding new pillows to the sofa, rather than drop $300 on paint that wound up covered, and then stripped off, in this heinous attempt at innovation.
I shuddered my way through my morning routine today, my eyes constantly darting to the orange smears and the color-spattered floor. We will have to repair the torn paint section—sometime. Right now, I have resolved only to bear it until I have the time and wherewithal to fix it. As I can’t bear the idea of being away from DS for even a day, it seems I’ll be dealing with my Tangerine Dream for quite a while. If it gets too serious, I can always relocate my shampoo to the basement and shower there. It’s cold and small and inconvenient, but at least everything matches, and there’s no paint on the floor.
A the L(onging for “Before”)
A: As many as you like, so long as none of them are me.
DS spent last week in Florida with his nanny and her husband. He was gone for 7 days, and I needed something distract myself for a full week. I was on my last week of break from school, and I was working every day, so the project had to be simple, swift, and productive. I talked it over with Howard, and we opted to paint the bathroom. It’s small, it’s enclosed, so there’s less chance of the mess spilling over into other rooms, and since we use it every day, there was added motivation to finish the project on time.
Since we had the time, I decided that it might be fun to be a little daring. Oh, the hubris of the untalented. I have no artistic talent. None. I admire artistic things, but from a safe and outsider’s distance. Painting, music, dance, and even theater are all delights to me, but only as a spectator. I know this about myself, yet I forgot all about it when I opted to sponge-paint my bathroom.
Or, at least, I remembered long enough to call my brother, who is an artist and who does have talents for color and style. Howard and I got him on the phone on December 30, just a few hours after DS had boarded a plane to Tampa. We directed my brother to the paint palette site and showed him the colors we’d chosen. After a few ‘ewwww!’ responses from him, he suggested a 3-color combination that appeared to be just shy of Utterly Insane. Where Howard and I had picked Whispered Peach, Brother opted for Blood Orange, paired with Rhubarb and Vanilla Milkshake. Purple, Orange and Sugared White. Dear God.
But, he is an artist and I am not. I trusted the artist and committed to try. We loaded up with supplies and a full gallon of the Blood Orange. We brushed the cut in and then rolled the first coat, and when we were done, I wasn’t sure whether I was standing in the center of a volcano or had been relocated to Middle Earth. The once gray-green white vanished beneath Bursting Sunset, and the color was so vivid and bright that it reflected all the way down the steps and in to the living room. I gulped away my nerves and Howard comforted me in a voice that had only slightly less tremor than my own. Don’t worry. This is just the base coat. It’ll be covered with white and purple. Excuse me. Rhubarb.
When it came time to sponge the Milkshake over the Inferno, the effort seemed suddenly too large, and we opted to do ragging instead. Ragging involves clumping up some piece of cloth (in this case, Howard’s undershirts), dipping it into the paint tray and then stamping it all over the walls. The ragging leaves a more interesting mark than the sponge, and so we tore up a group of shirts and set to work. This was Monday night, New Year’s Eve.
When we were finished, the Blood Orange had given way to Melting Dreamsicle. The orange, while muted, was still there, curdling the walls in every child’s ice cream nightmare. The echoing down the hall had dimmed, but the white looked sloppy on top of the orange, and there were now smudges of both paints on the trim. The drop cloth had torn and there was a dragon-shaped stain next to the tub. I called my brother, concern seeping through my forced laughter. “It’s in the blending,’ he assured me. “And ragging is nicer than sponging. I figured you would like that better.”
Well, ‘better’ is a relative term. It was ‘better’ than feeling like I was showing in utero, but I was far from satisfied. But commitment is commitment, and we still the Rhubarb. One more coat to go.
Brother had suggested we build the Rhubarb in stalk-like extensions from the floor to ceiling. I couldn’t figure out how to make a stalk with a bunched up underwear clump, and anyway, there was still way too much orange showing. I opted for full coverage, banging the rag against the walls to blot out the orange and mix with the white. Howard, on the other side of the bathroom, gave the Stalk idea its full due and make literal purple stripes up and down the walls.
Once completed with the Rhubarb and the bathroom “finished”, I could barely keep from crying. The purple clashed with the orange, the white had all but vanished, and we had Rhubarb on the stepladder, the sink and dripping down the shower stall. I knew I could never make it a full year with my bathroom in such a state. I called Brother.
On his instructions, we diluted the remaining Milkshake 2:1 with water and then rolled it over the whole wall. It would be like a glaze, he said. It would tone everything down and even the color out.
Wednesday afternoon, with hope and paint supplies waning, we diluted the white, loaded up our rollers and set to work. Apparently my talents for stirring do not extend to paint, because the dilution left the combination runny, and no amount of squeezing the roller would fix it. Howard gave up rolling and took to mopping up the puddles. About halfway through, I looked back at our work and tossed my roller down. “It looks like we’re painting over wallpaper,” I said. Howard agreed. It was a disaster.
Sadly, our work had left its mark in places not intended. Stray bits of Blood Orange had made its way past the painter’s tape and on to the ceiling. Howard had attempted to sponge off some of it, but that only managed to widen the stains. I knew that we’d have to do the ceiling anyway. Today was not that day for sure, and so while the stains rankled me, they would have to remain.
Thursday night, 5 days after our little project began, Howard bought home cans of primer. We figured, correctly, that no amount of any color would dilute the Citrus Explosion growing on the walls, and so we would simply start over. I thought, briefly, that perhaps painting the walls white would be enough. We could stop there, and just leave it until it was time to paint again, post-new bathroom.
Ah, but The Project That Will Never End had other ideas. We needed 2 coats of primer to get the blood and the rhubarb off the walls. Plus, the Stark White of the primer threw me back to every cheap rental I’d ever lived in, where every wall was White, Oh So White, and the trim hinted at way too many coats of ‘just slap it on before the next move-in’. I couldn’t leave it.
Friday night, after Primer coat #2 went up, we drove out to Lowe’s and picked up another gaggle of chips. We settled Saturday morning on Whispered Peach, a color remarkable close to the original color we’d chosen before the Artist’s Hangover took to our walls. We bought 2 gallons, new rollers, and brushes specifically designed for latex paint. Our trim and cut-in work was awful-there were brush marks everywhere, and no amount of paint-loading or brush-scraping seemed to fix it. We ‘invested’ in good brushes, complete with their own post-project holders, hoping that this, at least, would solve one of our myriad problems.
Nope.
The Peach went on lovely, subtly and smooth. Howard and I have no talent at this, though, and so the ceiling got its new stains of muted dawn to duel with the fruit salad. I did the cut-in work twice, the second time with a wedged sponge, and still the brush marks remained. By now, on Saturday morning, with DS due to return the following night and now SIX days into what should have been a 2-day project, I couldn’t focus on the pretty.
We got 2 coats up by Sunday morning, and then set about cleaning up the biggest spills. Howard replaced the bathroom mirror and then dug holes into the wall trying to put up our new medicine chest. While he cursed his way through anchors and drywall, I grabbed hold of a tape end and pulled. And that’s when I discovered that paint is a lot like nail polish. If you have 2 or 3 coats, you need acetone to take it off. If, however, you have 7, all you need to do is pluck off a corner and the whole nail peels off without effort.
Chips, chunks and slabs of pale orange peeled off with the tape, sometimes removing every coat we’d layered in the last week and showing the hospital gray-green white that the room had been Before. Howard used a box cutter on the niche areas, and I did my best to pull straight and even, but still, there are holes in the paint, and all of them are in obvious, can’t-hide-this-mess places.
The ceiling is a smudged orange, and somehow, the Blood color managed to seep up under the tape, so that there is a thin line of Raging Sunset along the lip of the ceiling in half the room. The tub looks like a cauldron of stewed vegetables and the shower stall is nothing short of melting-vegetable surrealism. After the last tape clump had been stuffed into the trash, I stood at the doorway entrance and shook my head. “We have destroyed this room,” I told Howard. “Yes,” he replied, “We have.”
I admit that I did distract myself while DS was gone. And with respect to the Universe, this is nothing. We’re not starving to death. Our home hasn’t been burned by the Junta, and even my Christmas indiscretion matters little at the macro level. We’re healthy, we’re all back together, and I got it done in time to delve into Principles of Financial Accounting, which started today.
Howard took a bigger approach, noting that we learned priceless lessons. We are plain, simple people when it comes to decoration. The blood-rhubarb-milkshake would have worked with someone talented who had hours to rag and sponge the walls Just So, but that is not us. We should have stuck with the creamy Hint O’Color that we’d chosen originally and left it at that. And in the mean time, we chose a small, self-enclosed room to showcase our fubar. We didn’t pain the kitchen, none of the cats fainted from the fumes, and now, more or less, it’s over.
DS did recognize all the changes, and spent quite a bit of time in the bathroom cataloging what was new. That helped, but more to recognize that he was aware of the changes, something he wouldn’t have noticed a year ago. I’m glad for that, though I would have preferred to discover this by adding new pillows to the sofa, rather than drop $300 on paint that wound up covered, and then stripped off, in this heinous attempt at innovation.
I shuddered my way through my morning routine today, my eyes constantly darting to the orange smears and the color-spattered floor. We will have to repair the torn paint section—sometime. Right now, I have resolved only to bear it until I have the time and wherewithal to fix it. As I can’t bear the idea of being away from DS for even a day, it seems I’ll be dealing with my Tangerine Dream for quite a while. If it gets too serious, I can always relocate my shampoo to the basement and shower there. It’s cold and small and inconvenient, but at least everything matches, and there’s no paint on the floor.
A the L(onging for “Before”)
posted by Former Fat Girl Gone Skinny | 11:34 AM
2 Comments:
Well, that seems to be an object lesson in "knowing your limitations...
I'm very sorry to read your tale of woe. I find that a Photoshop previsualization is indispensable in these circumstances.
Wishing you and yours a very happy 2008!
:)lee moyer
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