painting… but not like artistic painting, interior wall painting. i am a complete mortal disaster.
in college i lived in a massive 2-floor 3-bedroom old farmhouse conversion apartment. i owed a couple-few months rent and the landlord said i could pay back rent if i painted the apartment - the entire thing - just whitewash it (it’s a college place). he’d supply everything - tarps, paint, brushes, rollers - just DON’T get paint on the hardwood floors - even the baseboards were fine because it was a white wash - just not the floors. i also didn’t have to worry about the bathrooms or kitchen.
so i started at the top floor and worked my way down… it was the end of the year, school
was out so i had an empty apartment. the top floor and onto the stairs was mostly rug, so the tarp would overall stay in place…
i had music BLARING all hours of the day to get this done, 8-10 hours at a time, wiping up paint off the carpet as i went. while painting the stairs i had this massive tarp draped top to bottom, i’d have the bucket and brush or roller and tray a couple steps up so
i could get the walls or insanely tall ceilings.
in one (two) of my ‘ultimate genius’ moves i stepped onto the tarp too close to the bucket on the step above, pulling said tarp taught, and flipped the (nearly full gallon) bucket of paint on me, and all over the tarp (did this with a tray too). this will make a pair of pants, a shoe, and a tarp heavy (and messy). fortunately i was supplied other tarps, and i did have other pants to continue along with the job.
after FINALLY completing the staircase, i worked on the lower floor hall, and the owner came to check on me and the progress (he was a rather prominent attorney in the city, nice guy though). he was looking around and i hear “duuuuuude, i thought i said no paint on the hardwood!!” i went and looked and the paint had made little splatters when i rolled or whatever… no
idea… eff!!! so now i have to clean that. fortunately with the latex paint, i could get it to come
up
easy, BUT, i had to look for it - everywhere i already painted that had hardwood… and anything that may have leaked though the tarp.
i also mention that i’ll probably need more paint, which he was EXTREMELY surprised about. and when i explained to him the story of my ‘stairs incident’, then showed him
the tarp (that he’d been wondering why it had been laying in the front yard), he immediately lamented aloud “well that tarp is ruined!”… i did sheepishly reassure him that everything was contained to the tarp… which, as an attorney… i’m sure he bought.
after assessing the situation, he told me “this is likely going to cost me more than what you owe me in rent…” which didn’t make
me feel any better about my talent, hours of work… or the debt still hanging over my head. he told me to just ‘finish what you’re working on, and don’t get anymore paint on my hardwood’. which fortunately was just the downstairs hallway. but, i still had to figure out where all the other paint on the hardwood was.
i had some friends offer to help throughout, but it was my debt, and i felt i should pay it. however, i did accept some help on the last run of hardwood scrub lol…
i am still a pretty lousy painter, but i’ve improved over the years… but, i’m
not the guy you want to
invite over for beers and to help
you paint… i’ll
just take the beers