Three Stooge's Painting Company

Here is reason #49 why I love being a fulltime RVer......I never have to paint the inside of my house again.

Call us gluttons for punishment, but we offered to help our son-in-law, Darin, paint a bedroom today. Our granddaughter, Mackenzie, wanted her bedroom painted blue. When they moved into the new house 1 1/2 years ago, the builder painted all of the rooms a nice, light taupe color with white mill work. It looks very nice and sophisticated. The girls didn't actually like that color for their bedrooms, so their rooms are getting painted colors of their choice.

Tomorrow is Mackenzie's 8th birthday so we all decided she got to have her room painted first. Thankfully, dear Darin had already painted the ceiling with 2 coats of off-white paint yesterday. All we had to do, then, was paint the 4 walls. Simple? Well, maybe not so much.

Bruce and I have painted rooms in our homes many times. I don't know what the problem was today. This time with Darin, Bruce and I in the one room made it seem like the Three Stooge's were doing the painting. Our daughter, Stephanie, had taped off all the mill work yesterday to help us out. She had to be to work this morning at 3 am, so she wasn't there to help us. (or to see the Stooge's in action)

I put tarps along the wall where we were going to begin. Darin and Stephanie had purchased those painting pad things instead of paint rollers...and we have used those many times also. I got in there and loaded up my pad and began to paint the wall. Uh oh....dang it. There was paint drips on the tarp and then they somehow jumped off the tarp and onto the carpeting. Quick! Get the bucket of soapy water we already had on hand. I guess we knew disaster would strike at some point. Holy cow what a mess. I quickly gave Darin my job after I cleaned up the carpet and I got the little foam brush to do the corners and around the mill work. Darin began painting and we heard...Uh oh. He had been holding the paint tray with one hand and wasn't watching what he was doing and the thing tipped and he dribbled paint all over the front of his shirt and on his shorts. Hey, it could happen to anyone I told him. (secretly glad I wasn't the only stooge in the group) He was now wearing a white T-shirt and black shorts with blue paint decorating the front.

Then we got that mess cleaned up and we began in earnest once again. Pretty soon we heard from Bruce...Uh oh....I've dripped on the carpet where the tarp shifted. OK....soapy water to the rescue. The cell phone rang and I picked it up....Uh oh....blue paint was on my fingers and now it was on the red phone. Hmmmm. I'll get that cleaned up later. We had spattered so much paint onto the tarps that our feet were getting into it and then we had to be careful when we walked around because we left paint marks on the other carpet. More soapy water to the rescue.

When we were finished with the base coat...groan, it needs 2 coats.....I rolled up all the drippy, paint spattered tarps and threw them into the garbage can. Good idea to just start with fresh, clean tarps I told Curley and Moe. I'm Larry, and I named Bruce Moe, because Moe was usually the more bossy stooge! :) Then I began checking all the carpet to see if I needed to clean up any paint spatters. Oh, only about 127 of them. I set to work cleaning them up.

We ate lunch while the first coat dried. Stephanie came home from work and we sent her to her own bedroom to take a nap. We didn't need a 4th stooge. After lunch, I cut up some fresh tarps and I taped them to the carpet around the walls to try and cover everything without allowing the tarps to shift out of place. It worked better. We got the second coat of paint on the walls and it looked good. We let it dry while we cleaned everything up, including ourselves.

We got that room finished with 2 coats in just the one day. Now, on Friday or Saturday we will tackle Zoey's bedroom. She wants a lavender bedroom. I wonder how Curley (Darin) will look wearing lavender on his clothes this time?

We found a couple of blue paint spots on the white baseboard trim that will have to be touched up with white paint one of these days. In the meantime, quoting my Grandmother...."A man running for his life will never notice it and a blind man would be glad to see it". Truer words were never spoken.

Until next time....so long for now!