Painting Misadventures

Cobwebs

I hired a guy to plaster my walls. I expected him to smooth them out for me. I expected them to be perfect.
They were.
For about two weeks.
As I attempted to apply the primer
I learned something valuable
I learned that when new plaster meets a thick coat of primer, pieces of the new plaster will remain on the roller.
I no longer had smooth walls
Some panels look as if it had acne.
I continued to paint.
I should admit...
I have been painting the kitchen since August.
Yes
Since August
It has not been going well.
It began with the plaster peeling off onto the roller.
I worked through that
Slowly.
Because I refused to be defeated
Every weekend I promised myself that I would complete a layer, finish the trim, or otherwise do something.
Some weekends, I did something.
Most weekends, I did not.
Painting trim is evil.
The store did not properly mix the blue. What I thought would be a pale slate blue is actually a light periwinkle. 
Blue painter's tape - LIES. It pulls paint up every time. And forget about edging and trimming with it. 
I had to purchase green tape. 
Because screaming at the blue paint was not helpful.

Do you know how many corners are in your kitchen?
How many surfaces?
How many edges?
I bet you do not...

At the start of October, I thought I was done.
Until I moved the fridge to paint behind it - only to find that it had not been plastered.
I was furious.
It was a wall after all and I had contracted the man to plaster all the kitchen walls.
I called him. He didn't seem very apologetic. 
So, I decided to take ownership of this particular section of the kitchen and plaster it myself.
I used some drywall plaster that I found in the basement left over from last year and a smoothing tool.
I applied the plaster thickly. For some reason, I grooved it. I really cannot remember why I thought that was a genius idea.
I had to sand it down to make it even.
I let it dry for two days. Then I pulled out my sander and went to work smoothing the wall myself.
I felt so empowered.
So confident.
I wanted to be able to say that I did the wall behind the fridge all by myself.
I was so clever about the dust.
I pulled the dry vac, that I had purchased when I flooded my basement earlier this Fall, upstairs.
I placed the nozzle under my sander so that it would pickup all the dust.
I had sealed off the area with a drop cloth and taped it to the cabinetry. I wore an apron, headscarf and goggles.
I felt like a professional.
Until I heard the fire alarm.
I turned off the sander. Lifted back the drop cloth and peeked out from behind the fridge. I could not see anything because my goggles were covered in dust.
I removed the goggles but the dust in my vision remained.
It took me ten minutes to understand that dry-vacs will pick up dust and then blow it right out as a fine mist.I learned much later that I needed a separate filter if I want to vacuum dust.
I walked around.
Everything was covered in white dust from the stairs leading to the basement, the dining room pictures and all the wood furniture in the living room.
The kitchen floor had so much dust I could made sand castles out of it.
I spent the rest of the day vacuuming- with the HOOVER. Being so discouraged, it took me another two weeks to complete the area behind the fridge.
There is still dust everywhere; I have been too bummed out to clean it.
It got worse after I saw all the spiderwebs. Which when covered in plaster dust resemble cobwebs. And they were everywhere.
I had no idea that so much webbing had gone unnoticed as I devoted all my sparse free time to paint the kitchen. They were everywhere. Everywhere. Like out of a old fashion horror movie. 
And for some reason, those spider webs made me laugh until I hiccuped.
Then nothing was funny anymore.

Retrospect for September

Retrospect

The last four weeks of my life are full of retrospect

I thought to myself on early Wednesday morning a few weeks back..
As I stood in two inches of water in my basement. Fuzzy had tried to warn me Tuesday night as I readied myself for bed. She led me to the basement door and mewed. I thought that she wanted more food. I looked at her body and decided that she has become posterkitty for the fat house cat and said, "I will check your dish in the morning."
I had forgotten to turn off the hose when I answered the door to welcome my guests. I had a business meeting lasting well past midnight with awful pizza and I wanted to sleep. I missed a half day of work buying a wet/dry vac and mopping the floor.

Not long after the hose incident, I stood in my kitchen around the stroke of Midnight and thought

After $300, 4 weeks and two paint splattered outfits, I realized that I was in over my head. The plaster guy gave me bad information on just how long it would take the plaster to dry. As I painted my smooth walls with primer, I left pockmarks with every stroke. I almost cried. I still have to do the touch-up, paint the kitchen door and (heaven help me) paint behind the fridge. I declined 3 THREE Labor Day pool parties and a family picnic in order to finish painting my kitchen. IT IS STILL NOT DONE. I should have purchased a swim suit and jumped into the pool despite the rain. The meetings still convened at my house while I painted painstakingly slow.

I will never do this again. The kitchen used to be a blush color that I hated. Also, the plaster walls were in need of repair. It is now my blue rooster kitchen.

Last week, I considered to myself after viewing a program on my DVR..
Around the proverbial water cooler the topic a few weeks ago was "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo Child." I had to know what was the joke. I recorded the show and watched it the next morning as I readied for work. That is what I told my co-worker when I arrived late that morning. I should admit that I tried to talk all my business partners into watching the show in order to share the experience during the meeting in my home a day later. I even queued up the DVR for my guests.

And just today, I banged my head against my desk as I considered...
I am, of course, not referring to the effort it takes to acclimate a kitten into a home with a middle aged house cat. I am referring to the kitten-wreck. Kitten wreck refers to those things that, well, have been destroyed by the kitten in a home with a well trained house cat. Like shoe strings, walls, my clothing, my skin, my sleep, my quiet, my sense of safety, and finally my nerves.
I decided to foster the kitten Lydia and I found hiding in her garage last month until I could find him a home.The kitten has been literally underfoot ever since. I can never be assured that I am stepping on hard surfaces anymore.

I spent two weeks hiding the kitten from the cat to socialize him. In addition to keeping the kitten hidden from the cat, I had to spread their scents around each other. Google instructed me to rub the kitten's scent on Fuzzy's bedding.

That is me rubbing the kitten on Fuzzy's bed, which consists of a towel and an old pillow.
It made perfect sense at the time at the time.

This is Fuzzy approaching her bed. She sleeps on it every night at the foot of my bed. She still hadn't seen the kitten but she had heard the kitten through a bedroom door. I spent days hiding them from each other. All that ended when Roger figure out how to jump over the barrier that I had erected to keep them separated. Fuzzy knows something is wrong in this picture. She smells something foul.
	Here she is wondering, "What is that smell?" This was actually quite funny. But I did fear that she would retaliate by marking my sofa.
	Here she has made her assessment of the situation. And rendered her final decision.

I named the kitten Roger because he was found in a garage. I had meetings at my house every other day for two weeks and my friends began to like him. They called him Roger the Beast of a Kitten. Roger likes to attack Fuzzy. I have actually seen Roger leap into the air as if to pounce on the older cat. Roger does not have the sense to fear a ten pound cat.
A week ago, I learned that my first guess was correct and Roger is actually Raja. Yep, he is a she. I still call her Roger - every day. In retrospect, I should have given her a more cat-like name and not the pink skull and crossbones collar with that blasted bell.

So, in retrospect before I host a month-long series of business meetings in my house, I will not attempt to drown garden pests, adopt a new pet, take on a DIY project or watch inane reality shows.