Our big cargo shipment was scheduled to arrive on a Tuesday during EID week. This is a holiday time here and lots of things are shut down or have later hours. We had procrastinated having someone else do it so it meant that Brian and I had to paint on Sunday/Monday in order to have things done before all our stuff came.
There is a paint store about 10 minutes from our house. Excellent! It was of course closed for EID on Sunday and Monday. Fantastic. So – I had to head to Ace Hardware – a nearly 30 minute drive from my house. Great.
I drove up there on Sunday morning and picked out 2 gallons of a lovely brown paint for the Den and Dining Room and a gallon of blue for the Family Room.
I always seem to need more paint than what I think I do. I think the walls were super-porous or something because it took a ton of paint. Not to mention that the ceilings are higher and I misjudged what I needed. We used up 2 gallons of paint just doing the den. I figured that since the Family Room is pretty big, I would need 2 gallons of blue.
We tested the blue that we bought on the walls and both of us decided it was too light – more like a nursery blue so we decided to go darker. I wanted to go a “little” darker but I have to give props to Brian for encouraging me to go 2 shades darker than I wanted because it worked out great (eventually).
So after a full day of painting, I woke up on Monday and headed BACK up to Ace Hardware to purchase two gallons of blue paint. I was there for over an hour trying to decide on the color and getting what I needed. I watched them get the paint cans and punch the numbers in the computer and I double-checked the labels and went home with my paint. I think we started painting around 12:00 in the afternoon.
We got one gigantic wall done and one little wall done and decided to work on the second coat before moving the furniture to the other side and doing the other two walls.
Brian took a swipe of paint from can #2 and put it on top of our beautiful blue wall. It was a different color. I told him it looked a little off. He assured me that it always looks different when it first goes on, just wait until it dries. He then proceeded to paint in different swipes ALL over the wall putting on a second coat. A swipe here, a stroke there. I started freaking out. Ummmm – it REALLY looks like a different color Brian. It’s not the same. Seriously. Turn off the lights, look at it from this angle, close the shades, open the shades. STOP painting. I SWEAR it’s different. Walk out of the room, walk back into the room. That’s it!! I grabbed both cans of paint and got back in the freakin’ car and drove another freakin’ 30 minutes to get the right freakin’ paint.
I finally got there and then had to explain my plight and wait around while the guy talked to another guy who talked to another guy who talked to another guy and EVENTUALLY they mixed up two NEW gallons of paint. I needed to replace the “bad” paint and I clearly was going to need ANOTHER gallon of paint to finish the huge room. Meanwhile – I took a paint stirrer and placed a little paint from Can #1 – the good can, Can #2 – the funky color can and Can #3/Can # 4 – the new cans. Then – I held it up to strangers who didn’t appear to speak English very well and asked their opinion. Do these look the same? Which one doesn’t belong? Is it just me or is this not look the same??? They could see the difference too – or at least said they could and that was reassuring.
Fortunately Ace exchanged the bad can for a new can and I paid for ANOTHER can and headed back home. That was an awesome 2 hours out of my day ruined. Argh!!!
I got home and we finished painting the rest of the room and did a second coat and cleaned up. WE FINALLY went to bed at 11:00 p.m. after an 11 hour day of painting and prepping and painting and driving. I was WIPED. But – the end result is fabulous! Now if I could just figure out what to put on my walls……
Family Room – BEFORE
Family Room - AFTER
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