Blue Wall, White Wall (Home projects story 1)

In Andy’s absence (he went to Spain for a choral competition, if you’re out of the loop) I decided to keep myself busy with home improvement projects, of which Andy is unaware.

First step: painting my bright blue bedroom a less obnoxious color. Andy and I have spent some time discussing the color we would like our room to be. He wanted light brown, I wanted mint green. Since he left before we could resolve this debate, I decided to give in and paint the bedroom brown (using my beloved mint green as an accent color).

My darling friends, Jamie and Emily, came over to support my extreme fervor for the painting process. We were able to get the first coat on in about 2 hours. They are rock stars. As they were leaving, I realized that I still had a blue wall to cover. We have an extra room off of our bedroom; three of the walls are painted a pleasant tan color while the fourth wall is painted the nauseating BRIGHT BLUE that once plagued my bedroom.

Geez. I thought. If we could do an entire room in two hours, it should be a snap to do one wall! Right?

I should state that the blue wall was once the exterior of the house. It is a very uneven brick wall with many nooks and crannies. As much as I would like to strip the paint and have exposed brick in that room, I didn’t think my 7 days remaining would be adequate time to A) learn how to strip paint down to the brick, and B) actually do it. Rather, I chose to paint the brick wall white since the brown I put in the bedroom did not match (nor did it compliment) the tan in the extra room. Plus, a white wall would certainly brighten up the extra room.

Around 6:30, I began my project. I found a can of paint called “Brilliant White”, grabbed my trusty brush and roller and set to work. I called my sister to keep me company as I painted. The sun was almost gone and the lighting wasn’t great. April and I chatted for several minutes before I said, “This paint doesn’t seem very white.”

That having been said, it was much lighter than the blue wall underneath it. I told April that the light (or lack thereof) was playing tricks on my eyes and that the paint was much lighter and therefore must be white.

I painted and painted the brick wall, making sure to include all crevices and indentations. A sizable blister formed and popped on my right ring finger from the tenacity with which I was painting. I yelled at my cat a few times for stepping directly into the wet paint on the door frame, and meticulously smoothed out the paint thus eliminating the dreaded footie prints.

After another hour and a half of careful painting, my first coat in both rooms was finished! I washed the brushes, took a shower (scrubbing very hard to get all of the paint off), and settled into bed with season 12 of South Park to keep me company. I was so proud of myself for all that I had accomplished!

In the morning I went into the bedroom to admire the mostly dried round 1 outcome. The bedroom was lovely. There were a few bleed-throughs but it was very even and looked great! One more coat and the bedroom would be done!

I stepped into the extra room and found…

…AN EFFING BRIGHT BLUE WALL!

Yes, friends. I worked so hard to paint the wall the exact same color I was trying to get rid of. The can must have been from another paint because the color on the wall was definitely annoying, ugly, bright, sky blue. I cursed the heavens knowing that I’d have to start again with coat 1 later that night.

Today, the first coat is finished. I made sure to start early enough yesterday evening to see that the color I was applying to the wall was indeed white. Tonight will be the 2nd and hopefully last coat of white paint. On the bright side, the ugly blue cannot be found on any of my walls!!