Chicken Coup 4: The Paint-a-thon

EDIT: I wrote this post shortly before Christmas, but the holidays got in the way and I forgot to post it, so I'm sticking it up now. Don't judge me.

So, I managed to paint in the inside of the chicken coup in two caffeine filled days. My right arm feels like it is about to fall off. It was a bit unnerving to be up on a ladder, painting stuff above my head while practically vibrating from the caffeine.

But it's god damned DONE.

HA HA WHOO! Ahem.

The best part was stepping down off the ladder, and heaving a big sigh of relief, and looking down to see that my dog was covered in paint. I do not know how many dog owners feel about what I like to call emergency bath time, but I sure as hell don't enjoy it.

Now I maintain my dog is the best dog ever because she hopped reluctantly into the tub and stood mournfully while I cleaned her. It does not turn into a wet dog wrestling match. I am very thankful for this. On the other hand, though, she does love to shake her wet shampoo covered self. All over me. And the Bathroom. Towels? What the Fuck is that Towel shit? Towels are for pussies she says looking back at me while shaking herself all over the particle board cabinets*.

I don't think I will be able to paint the outside until spring however. It is simply going to be too cold. Somehow, I just can't work up the energy to give a damn about that.

* I am going to build a house no matter what. I don't care what it takes. I am so fucking sick of everything inside being made out of particle board.

Want more Chicken Coup Adventure? Here's Part Five.

 

Painting Part 2

Surprisingly the living room wall painting went well. The stripes don't look hideous and I feel comfortable painting the other wall with stripes. I love the look, even though it kinda makes my living room look like a hotel. I get a little surge of pleasure every time I look at that wall.

Which means that I am winning, in your face shitty mobile home walls. WHOO! YEAH!

Ahem. It looks nice, is what I'm saying.

Unfortunately, they worked so well I decided to paint horizontal stripes in my office. This was in retrospect, a bad decision. It wasn't that the stripes look bad, or even that they are crooked or uneven, but that trying to fix the original color with white stripes was never going to work. I had painted the room a really unfortunate bright greenish blue. It matches nothing in that room. I really do not like the color, but it was the only light color I felt I had enough of. So I used it.

Don't get me wrong, I like the stripes, I just wish I could have had a better color scheme.

Also, while vertical stripes are easy to do, horizontal stripes became a nightmare of taping and cursing. Since I was measuring my stripes off the ceiling, I came to the conclusion that the ceiling is not level. Plus, the walls were bowed and warped in odd ways, making the tape look off, even when it was not. I had another nasty surprise, in that when I peeled the painters tape off, some of the original paint would peel off as well. I attributed this to the smooth, almost too smooth walls, since I had damn well sanded the walls before painting. This was easy to fix though, I just used a small paintbrush to repaint the damaged bits, but it was still sort of defeating.

Technically the stripes are great, they are level, even around the room, and the lines are clean. I am really good at painting stripes, and not so good at being rich enough to afford real colors.*

Someday, we will build that goddamn house and I will pay someone to mix paint for me and it will be beautiful.

Now, I just have to paint the other wall in the living room, and Scott doesn't know this yet, but I am going to repaint that god damned kitchen. Possibly while he is on a business trip.

Love you honey.

*Real colors: colors I actually picked out and had mixed. Or alternatively, colors I actually like.

PaintingThe Walls

In preparation for moving into the newer mobile home, and in addition to adding the wood stove, I have also been painting the interior. It sort of occurred to me a few days ago that the half ripped up wallpaper that had been left by the previous tenants was not what I wanted to look at for the five or so years until the house is done.

Now, what I did not realize was that the previous owners had done a lot of remodeling, but had not really fixed up the holes in the walls very well, unless you count covering said hole with wallpaper a fix.

Mostly I just painted around the goofs, and when it was dry, hung up some of my dad's crocheted blankets on the wall stepped back and said “perfect!”

Unfortunately I discovered another surprise in the living room, which was that they had removed the original door. They had filled the space with something resembling cheap drywall, but there was still huge gap all around the repair. It took me three days of slapping joint compound on the wall, to even began to hide it. The wall is still kinda hideous, it's definitely not that super smooth look that I'm beginning to suspect has something to do with not having your walls made out of particle board and shattered aspirations.

My plan is to paint vertical stripes the wall. Hopefully that will hide all of the horrible mutant deformities. I'm going to be using an antique white, and a color I call -the-color-my-dad-had-bought-at-Lowes-in-their-oops-paint-section. I am not willing to buy new paint to paint a crappy mobile home so I just have to hope that weird ass colors I'm painting this thing won't drive me insane before we can build that house.

I enjoy painting, I really do, but I have a sinking feeling that none of the colors I have access to are going to work with the preexisting colors that are already in this place. Most of this paint I'm using was stuff that my dad had bought before he died, and from his selection I can tell three things:

1. He never paid full price for paint in his life.

2. If it was an exterior paint he had to buy it because you never know when you will need to paint something outside. (How else do you explain the gallon of dark, dark purple I found?)

3. Blue was the best color in the whole god damned universe. Hell, blue was almost the only color in his universe.

I wish I could say something witty here, but I am really hoping that when I paint the stripes on it makes the room work, instead of looking like a wall sized printer error.

Fuck.