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Friday, June 24, 2011

I am so not good at painting!


Synchronized cats

I missed yesterday’s blog because I was painting and things just got away from me. Cate is in Moscow and I lost track of time.

There are many things at which I am not good – and there are things at which I am particularly bad.

One of these is painting. I try to avoid it but in an apartment that is entirely white the walls do get marked so I try to – every now and again – do a spot of painting just to keep it looking good. Marks get on the walls for all sorts of reasons. There are numerous cats who live here and they knock things over – well one of them does.

Cate has a candle fetish and it often looks like Stephansdom on All Saints Day in here – and these leave black marks on the walls. The furniture gets moved around and there is just the wear and tear of life – you know how it is.

So I like to occasionally take a pot of paint and a small roller and dab at marks on the walls to cover them up as best I can – which is none too good. Well – I had not done this for a while and there were quite a few marks and scruffy bits that needed sorting out so I set out with a pot of paint and roller and spent a good two hours pottering around the lounge room.

After half an hour or so I look at the trail I had left behind me and thought that the it looked a bit conspicuous – I had a left a bright white trail behind me and had a horrible fright for a moment – thinking I was using gloss paint. But I checked and it was definitely matt paint. So I thought well it will be OK when it dries – it always has been in the past.

But it wasn’t.

Now there are thousands of different whites and this was not the same white I had used in the past – because I could not get that – but it was just plain old wall white for goodness sake – but it got no duller as it dried. It was terrifying and could not be viewed with the naked eye for fear of snow blindness.

So I hurtled off to Bauhaus and got another tub of flat matt white and this time used a larger roller – thinking that this may have been the problem.

This time the paint was not quite as conspicuous but it had left clear roller marks all over the walls and is quite clearly a vastly different white from the existing wall color.

So I did it again with another paint and a bigger roller and it was worse.

So it has turned into on of those goat things. I cannot paint all the walls in the lounge room because they are gigantic – and eight meters high. I have had to create discrete areas and cordon them off cunningly with masking tape so that the joins of different white hues are not so noticeable. If people do notice I will tell them it is art and part of a static installation I am creating.

So yesterday I had to embark on quite a gigantic painting thing and mark off parts of walls and re-paint them and pray to the Fuckup Fairy that when I woke up today it would not be so bad that they would not need multiple coats.

Well – it’s OK – sort of – if you don’t look too closely.

There is quite a bit more that needs doing but I am on the right track. Of course I am not painting high up the walls  and I am painting around the large pieces of furniture – simple because I cannot move them – with my broken ribs this is impossible – so when we move out this is going to look very strange indeed.

I can imagine the painters coming in and thinking – WTF?

Anyway – Sissi helped as best she could and I kept a damp cloth at hand to get the paint off her paws. But I am so not good at painting. I get more paint on me and the floor and everything else than I do on the walls. It's just tragic. 

Anyway - I am off to do it again. 

8 comments:

  1. Given your broken ribs (when ARE they expected to heal?), I am staggered that you embarked on this at all. For me you have told such a tale of impossible woe that had it been me, I think I would just have given up.

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  2. I hate painting walls, mainly because of the smell of the paint, which gives me headaches. Obviously didn't trigger a migraine in you though. Which is good. I think, like Merricks, I'd have given up and decided I liked that wear and tear look about the place.

    Happy painting! What a surprise for Cate...

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  3. Just call it a study of white-on-white. Very cool ;)

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  4. *Shudder*
    I hate painting.
    I give you HUGE props for even THINKING about doing touch ups, let alone attempting them. With broken ribs, no less.

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  5. Are you now out to paint the town red? ;-)

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  6. I had a painter disconnect the power supply to the alarm system. Then the battery backup drained. The alarm company called telling me that I needed a new backup battery. The previous owner knew nothing about the battery's location. The alarm company evetually gave us a smaller sized object to look for. But their cabinet in our place was locked. Previous owner had no key. The security company suggested looking on top of the locked box. There was the key. Ah, battery was 12 volt, but smaller form factor, not like car battery. Wandered all over town looking for one. None in my town of 13,251. Security company was happy to send a new battery for a 30 fee, so ok. Cheaper than driving 120 miles round trip. Get battery a week later. Install in minutes. Wait required 12 hours for system to charge the new battery. Nothing. System doesn't respond. (Remember the first part of story about painter that I knew nothing about the painter disconnecting power?) Security company decides they will send a repair person to locate problem for "free".... Luckily my wife suddenly remembers there was a disconnecting of the power transformer during the painting process. Ah, there it is, hidden above the ceiling tiles along with the alarm horn. Plug every thing back in. Delay of 20 seconds. Horn about knocks me off ladder when the system resets!!! Alarm company bills me for the battery I never really needed and the three weeks of "service" we didn't really use. At least I have a cool looking old battery that still probably works okay, just drained.

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  7. Merricks: They will heal when I stop doing stupid things like lifting pot plants - and painting.

    Sandy: Yes well - I got the migraine as well - the double whammy.

    SK Waller: It sure is different!

    Merisi: Any color but WHITE

    Katie: I also hate it: And now I have retired FOREVER.

    esbboston:Excellent story. Maybe I had it easy after all.

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  8. At least the marks are covered up...

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