Strokes

June 7, 2010 in About the Blog, Home Ownership, Journal Entry by Cheshire Splat | 7 comments

Paint in patches.

Overlap your patches.

Keep them even.

Keep painting.

Keep painting.

My mantra has been simple and arduous these past few days.  I’m doggedly determined to get several key rooms painted now rather than later.  It’s coming along, but WAY slower and WAY harder than I expected.  I don’t know if it’s the drywall in here or the paint that I bought (which wasn’t a cheap one), but it’s taking more coats than expected to get the colors right.  It doesn’t help that the seller painted everything this ass ugly bright yellow-beige.

Other than that I’ve been mentally wiped and just kind of holding it together.  The one thing I wasn’t expecting with my first house was the mental saturation.  At a number of points I’ve just gotten so that I can’t absorb anything else.  And all these decisions need to be made by me.  It’s my house.  I’ve had to make myself stop and rest at a few points just to keep it together.  But it’s been going well all in all.

So I’m finally starting to stabilize here and hope to have some insights posted in the next day or so.  I might post about a few of the projects I have going around the house, but I don’t want to get too focused on that here.  Blogs only about home projects are a little annoying.  This is a journal style blog, and I intend to keep it that way.

Mainly though, I am just pushing ahead, stroke stroke stroke, and looking forward to having a normal social life again in a couple of weeks.  Be back in the regular swing of things soon.

  1. rick’s avatar

    rick on June 8, 2010 at 8:59 am

    i hear ya, dude. painting SUCKS. we only ever painted our 2 bedrooms here and 2 small assorted walls. i think when we move to our next place, we’ll just hire a crew. i’m getting too old for painting.

  2. Cheshire Splat’s avatar

    Cheshire Splat on June 8, 2010 at 9:28 am

    me too. at the very least, i keep telling myself, i’m getting a good workout out of it. it’s getting me in shape before i hit the beach this summer. but still. this shit sucks.

  3. The Baltimore Chop’s avatar

    The Baltimore Chop on June 8, 2010 at 2:22 pm

    I’m kind of curious what it ended up costing you to paint a rowhouse sized room?

    I feel like just adding up paint and brushes won’t give a true picture. I’ve got some painting to do in my living room, so it would be good to know what the expenses might be when it’s all said and done.

  4. Cheshire Splat’s avatar

    Cheshire Splat on June 8, 2010 at 3:11 pm

    I got Behr paints at Home Depot, which run like $28/gallon or $100/5 gallon. For a rowhome sized bedroom, could be anywhere from 1.5 gallons to 3 gallons, depending on the size of the room and how many coats you do.

    You then need brushes, rollers, and pans. Disposables are the pan liners, roller brushes, plastic liner, and tape. Could be $50-100, depending on how thrifty you go. But a lot of that is reusable.

    I’d ballpark it at $100-150, depending on the quality of the brushes/rollers you want. But a lot of that is reusable, so your next room will be cheaper.

    I bought paint for two bedrooms, a basement, a living room, and two bathrooms, so I blew a bunch of money.

  5. Cheshire Splat’s avatar

    Cheshire Splat on June 8, 2010 at 3:12 pm

    Oh and one tip: get the fat painters tape. Even though it costs more. Will save you from having to touch up the ceiling and other places. That ceiling paint is unforgiving–once it’s smudged it’s smudged.

  6. The Baltimore Chop’s avatar

    The Baltimore Chop on June 9, 2010 at 4:14 pm

    Thanks. I can ballpark it easily. I’m curious what you’ve actually spent to get a room done.

  7. Cheshire Splat’s avatar

    Cheshire Splat on June 10, 2010 at 2:47 pm

    I bought a bunch of paint for a bunch of rooms with paint and supplies shared between rooms. No easy way to break it down $$ per room. Sorry.