Oops.

Alternate Title: What Happens When a Color Blind Man and a Blonde Repaint a House?

Blonde = Me

Color Blind Man = My dad (he was color blind to all shades of brown and yellow)

Important Background Information: I am a very impatient person, at times. I can also be pretty competitive, even with myself.

So my parents bought this new house, and were getting it all ready before they moved.  It's a great house with big rooms and tall ceilings, but an old couple lived there and the rooms were pink, BRIGHT yellow, baby blue, and mint green.  Obviously, a paint job was needed.  My dad liked to do things himself, so my parents decided that we (my dad and I) would paint the house.  My mom was forbidden (by my dad) to ever paint again due to a tragic paint related incident.   I like to paint.  I'm good at it, and it's a pretty quick and easy way to make a room look nice and new.   So I didn't mind.  I thought.

Painting had been difficult because of my dad's schedule and mine.  And I didn't live that close to their new house.  We had painted a very large living room, dining room, hallway, and kitchen.  We then needed to complete the master bedroom (which is huge) in one day.  But I am a painting machine, and knew I could knock it out easily in one day, and work on a bathroom after that.

But I had to get up at the crack of dawn to get there.   And I was tired.  And it was storming all the way down to their house.  And when I got to my parents house, my dad was napping on the couch.  I was cranky.

Crank or no crank, the paint must go on!  So I used the trusty PaintMate (a VERY HANDY roller that stores paint in the handle of the roller, and the paint comes out through the roller itself.   Saves you having to go to a paint tray 500 times.) and knocked that first coat out.  It looked really good.  In fact, it almost could have gone without a second coat.  But I like to do things right, so a second coat would go on!  I was painting the room a kind of very light brown/beige color.  I'm not sure how else to describe it.  Definitely a brown tone (remember the colors my dad is color blind with?).  Toward the end of the room, the PaintMate started to have some issues.   The gasket on the end of it was loosening, and paint started to drip out.  I was starting to get irritated but finished the room.

We stopped for a lunch break, and I told my dad that I needed another can of paint to do the second coat.   I told the color blind man to go get me another can of paint.  By this time, I was really not looking forward to the second coat because I was sore and tired.  Pulling the paint into the PaintMate takes a lot more upper body strength than you'd think, and the room was big, and I just wanted to get it over with.

I loaded up the PaintMate without looking at the paint very closely, because frankly pulling the paint into that stick was like pulling someone out of quick sand.  Then the leaky side started to leak, and I mean a LOT.   Paint was flying everywhere.   It was dripping on the walls, it was leaving lines, and I was having to go back and redo a lot to fix that.

This is where my bright, shining personality really came out.  I was pissed at that PaintMate.  PISSED. I was yelling at an inanimate object.  The f-bomb was flying.  There was a constant drip drip drip drip where paint was leaking everywhere.  My dad wasn't really caring that it was flinging paint everywhere and he wasn't helping me, and the drop cloth had paint all over it.  Every time I would take a step back, I was stepping into wet paint.  I was NOT a happy camper.  I couldn't even get OFF the drop cloth because my feet were so totally covered in paint.

I did think once "Gee, this second coat really looks light.  I can't believe how dark paint can be when it dries."   Cue the dramatic music.

However, I was so freaking pissed that I was going to get that room done QUICKLY, and WELL, and be DONE.   So I was laying on that paint very thickly.

I finally finished and vowed that I would never use that roller from Hell ever again.   My dad said "Yeah that one is getting old, I think it's time for a new one."  Gee, you think?

My sister came over and was looking at my work, and it was still pretty light on that wall.  And kind of...yellow.  Absentmindedly, I said "Gosh I hope we didn't use the wrong color in here for the second coat!  haha!  But see the trim?  That's what it will look like when it dries."

I left to go paint in another area.  I then went to get the gold paint my mom wanted in the kitchen.  Hmm.  Where is the can?  Here's the can for the master bedroom paint, but...oh no.  Oh no, oh no, oh no.  I went in the master bedroom to find a lovely second coat, dried beautifully on the wall, IN GOLD.  On top of the light brown walls.

My dad gave me the wrong paint color.   I didn't notice it.   I spent all day painting that room for nothing.

Guess I shouldn't quit my day job, huh?

Dedicated to my favorite house painter, Dad.