Painting Week

The Week of Painting has begun. Yesterday I obtained paint and painting supplies, so I guess I'm really going to do this. The main thing that needs doing is the bathroom, in part because it's a non-neutral color and in part because of some sheetrock repair that was done when the new heater/air conditioner was installed. When I bought the house, there was a pinkish and teal "Southwestern" pattern wallpaper in there. When I was using the downstairs bedroom as an office, that didn't bother me much. When I switched rooms, moving the bedroom downstairs and the office up, that wallpaper didn't work adjacent to my rather Victorian blue-and-white bedroom. I ripped out the wallpaper and painted the walls a bright blue (if you use the plain blue wallpaper screen on a Mac, it's about that color) with a soft beige color wash over it. I was planning to use the sheetrock repair as an excuse to repaint with a slightly different shade of blue because the original paint came out a bit darker and brighter than I really wanted. I just couldn't decide on a paint color. I've had cards of paint samples sitting in that room for years and was never sure about any of them. Since I'm planning to sell soon, I figured I might as well just do a basic white, especially since I also have to repaint the laundry room because there's a bit of sheetrock repair in there from a plumbing repair.

I was then trying to decide which white was closest to what I needed, but then I got the clever idea of taking the piece of sheetrock that was cut out of the laundry room to Home Depot and telling the guy in the paint department that I needed that kind of paint in that color. He ran it through the scanner, and now I have paint to match, and it's enough to take care of most of the normal-height walls in the house -- the ones that are problem areas, like in the kitchen. The original painters didn't do a very good job because there are spots where the tape is clearly visible, so I'm doing some mudding over it before I paint. Today's fun is finishing the sheetrock repair in the laundry room. I've already touched up the spots around the new thermostat. Tomorrow I get to apply new texture to the walls that used to be wallpapered and to the patched areas. Thursday will be primer day for the spots that need it. Then Friday morning I'll paint before heading to ConDFW, and that way the paint can dry thoroughly while I'm out of the house.

This is where all the work I've done with Habitat for Humanity is paying off. I learned all kinds of skills for painting and preparing for painting, as well as observing how to deal with sheetrock.

Meanwhile, I guess I also need to get ready for the convention. I need to find something to read and maybe get together some promo stuff. And I got the new book re-outlined yesterday, so I hope to do a little writing. I'm finding it hard to fit all the home repair work and the writing in because it's hard to shift mental gears. I need to find a piece of music that tells me it's time to write this book so I can shut off the part of my brain that's figuring out the best way to paint that particular wall.