Happy Memorial Daze

Well, another Memorial Day, another "let's paint a room" idea. I have no idea what it is about Memorial Day, but it always seems to make me want to paint a room.

It always sounds like such a good idea while lying on the couch.

This year, I decided I wanted to paint the bedroom blue. I love blue. The wife--not so much. But, with the purchase of a new white bed spread with blue trim, I knew I had a chance at a blue bedroom. My chances increased a million-fold when the color-match machine at Homo Depot indicated that my choice of blue paint was exactly the color of the bed spread trim. Score!

The wife stayed out of it. She seemed to think that silence would absolve her of any wrong doing if the color sucked. (Last year's choice of color for the third bedroom looks like mint chocolate chip to me. I hate it. Didn't look anything like the stupid color swatch. I was hoping not to have two year's in a row bad color luck. The wife kinda likes it. I don't know how. I still lament choosing that color.)

We've learned over the years that we should not do home improvement projects together, as all we do is basically scream at each other. The wife tapes the room and gets out of the way (or, out of the house, which is the much better option). I paint like the dickens and then leave the mess. The wife returns to clean the mess and I leave the premises and find something better to do. Wa-la! No screaming.

I started painting the room and by the time I got done with the trim, I was thinking about what was I thinking when I decided I wanted to paint another room on a Memorial Day weekend. It was too late to stop or whine, so I kept on plugging along. Thankfully, I LOVED the color, which was very motivating during moments of wanting to poke my eyes out. I was also psyched that I only dripped on the carpet three times (well, three blobs big enough to see with the naked eye)... probably a new record for me. (I dropped the paintbrush once. That should count as at least two blobs, so make that four drips.)

The only real problem occurred when I realized I was not going to have enough paint. One gallon should have easily covered the whole room, but the walls seemed to just suck up the paint like there was no tomorrow. I kept thinking, "maybe I can make it," but then I'd look in the can and realize there was no way. I had to break the news to the wife, who would then have to return to Homo Depot and get another can....which would be way too much but there was nothing I could do. This had potential to lead to a fight, but somehow we just grumbled and she went grudgingly to the store while I kept on painting.

By the way, the dogs didn't whine this year like all the other years. Usually, they want to come in the room where I am painting. This is never a good idea, as evidenced by the traumatic "Lucy-in-the-paint-running-across-the-carpet" fiasco a few years back. (That was a VERY bad day, although it's really funny now.) For some reason, the dogs stayed away and were well behaved; in fact, they basically slept through the whole ordeal. Here they are, napping. Side note: Lucy's perch is really not a good idea, as she has permanently made a dent in the top of the good leather furniture. Maybe because Lucy's so cute we let her get away with it. Hard to say. It's so uncharacteristic of the wife to let this bad behavior continue. The Fatty Patty (aka Freckles) usually sleeps on the pillow to the right (so she can look out the window and act like a freak when something or someone walks by), but on this painting day, she found herself curled up on the left. It WAS a really befuckled day, I guess. I'm just glad they weren't whining and running through the paint.


The wife returned with gallon number two, just in time for me to run out of gallon number one. I finished the room in record time and bolted out the door the second the last speck of paint was rolled onto the wall. I went for a walk with MJagger while the wife cleaned up the mess I had left behind. (For the record, I love this arrangement.) By the time I got home, the beloved wife had everything cleaned and back in place. (I don't know how she moved the furniture by herself but she did. What a woman!) The only thing left to do was admire the color.

I love, love, love it. LOVE! It's way better than ol' chocolate chip mint room; in fact, it's the exact, perfect color I have hoped for all these years of living in the house. Yum!

Fourteen years later, the only thing left to paint is the hallway/stairway. We are NOT looking forward to that due to the high ceilings over the stairs. I don't think we will be able to take on this task as we don't have scaffolding or the brain power to figure out a way to rig our few puny ladders in order to reach the very high places. We haven't decided on a color for that but we can argue about that when the time comes....which, I am hoping isn't until next Memorial Day.

After the hallway/stairway is done, I guess we start repainting the rooms we already painted, starting with the Master Bedroom--the room with painted walls that you can't tell we painted because the paint chip once again really didn't look like the color we painted on the walls--or, should I say lack of color we painted on the walls. But, that's at least two Memorial Days away, so I have plenty of time to lay on the couch and think about how much I like to paint.

Until then, I am just going to stare lovingly at the blue walls in the bedroom.

Happy Memorial Day to all. (And, just say no to painting on this holiday.)

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P.S. Congrats to Cheeseball Neighbor for being elected Coach of the Year. We are so proud to be your neighbor!
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