Painting

My wife and I have been talking about painting parts of our house. We even have the color picked out for our guest half-bath. I have been less than excited about the whole venture. Painting has never been my forte. Perhaps I have a subconscious block against painting. This block most likely extends from some of the painting fiascoes I had growing up.


The first real experience I had with painting came when I was about 12 years old. My father had just finished the basement in our house and Josh and I were assigned to do the “cutting in” and priming of the walls and ceiling. There were a couple big 5 gallon buckets of paint that were going to be used on our room and parts of the rest of the basement. Josh and I got to work with our paint brushes and a couple rollers. We worked on various occasions for several hours a piece. It seemed that no matter how many layers we put on it really didn't look right- so, we just kept adding layers. We must have painted nearly 15 coats on the walls of that room. Finally we asked our dad to come and inspect our masterpiece. He came to the basement (Josh and I were always given a room in the basement, always as far away as possible from my parents' room). He took a look at the room and asked what we had used to paint the room. We proudly showed him the bucket we had used.

His verdict came swiftly and stung like the whip of the task master he was- we had used primer to paint all 15 coats of paint. We still had to paint the whole room again! Josh and I were none too happy. I think we complained about it for weeks. Dad . . . that slavedriver!

I can't get too upset at my dad. Despite our disaster painting our own room he hired us to paint one of the rooms in his actual business. He had just remodelled a couple office rooms where he does business. The carpets were new but painting still needed to be done. A very nice oil based paint was chosen.

Josh and I set down covers on the edges of the new carpet and we taped off the edges, floor boards, removed door knobs, etc. We prepped with primer (remembering our mistake from years earlier) and we began to paint with the nice paint. I set the paint bucket on top of a folding table.

What happened next will live on until both Josh and I no more. My dad's version of this incident is probably the best. He was sitting at his desk doing work and from the other room where Josh and I were working he hears a “thud” and then he heard me say several times “Oh no! Oh no!” and then he saw me running past the door to his office and running back with a handful of paper towels from the bathroom. He knew what had happened as soon as he heard me say “Oh no!”

I had accidentally bumped the table in which Josh and I had set the paint bucket (which was nearly full at the time). The paint bucket fell onto the center of the room carpet where we had not set the tarps. The size of the paint spill was comparable to the recent BP oil-spill- at least it seemed to me at the time.

To my dad's credit he never said a harsh word. In fact, my father has always been a very good man, not to ever put objects and possessions above people. A ruined object (by accident- or not under bad intentions) was no reason to belittle or harshly treat someone.

That carpet stain stayed in that back room for over 10 years. It was in a spot that could never be covered. Maybe that is why that room (which was originally intended to be an office) was used as a storage room.