After painting my white kitchen wall with relative ease, I thought spray painting 24 picture frames black would be a piece of cake. I couldn't have been more wrong. Originally, I assumed Shulamith would do this with me, but then we read that spray painting is the worst kind of painting for pregnant women because of the mist of paint fumes spreading everywhere, so I was on my own. Whine. First, I had to dismantle every single frame, carefully bending back those little metal things and then removing the glass. Then I laid out all 24 frames on large plastic garbage liners on our deck. By this point, I was already pretty much over this whole project, and I hadn't even begun to paint. Whine.
It was too late to turn back, so I grabbed the can of paint and began to spray. Of course that's exactly when the wind picked up, so paint was flying everywhere, everywhere it seemed except on my frames. It was just so hard. And then I looked down at my hands. Gasp! Black paint was everywhere, running down my fingers, underneath my nails. Ugh! I ran inside and tried to wash it off, but no. This must be like permanent paint? So gross. Can you hear the whine? Before I even had one coat on half the frames, I ran out of paint. Well of course I did; most of it was on my hands, and the rest was on my deck!
I washed my hands as best I could and headed back to the store to buy another can. As I arrived at the store, it occurred to me that not only did I resemble The Bride of Frankenstein, I didn't have shoes on. Nope, only socks. And the socks didn't even match because earlier I had been wearing boots. Guess I was so frazzled trying to get the paint off my hands that I didn't notice? So did I go back home to get shoes? Absolutely not. I didn't see a sign saying "No shoes, no shirt, no service," so I walked right in, stocking feet and all. What did the people in the store think of this crazy girl with no shoes and unmatched socks? I honestly have no idea.
Second can of paint in hand, I drove home, trying to obey traffic laws but still hurry. The weather forecast for late afternoon/early evening was for rain! Now those of you who know me, know how much I love rain. There is just no better weather. But if that lovely rain were to arrive before my frames were painted and dry, this whiny mom could potentially turn into....well, let's not go there. Just as I pulled into the garage, I got a text from Shulamith: "I see rain clouds. Hurry!!"
Back outside I ran with my new can of paint to finish the other half of the frames and then spray a second coat on the first half. Have I mentioned that this is not fun? Why do people do stuff like this? More importantly, why didn't you, my friends, talk me out of it? Why didn't you remind me that this kind of thing never ends well? Whine. Whine. Whine. Then came the waiting, the seemingly endless cycle of waiting for paint to dry, checking for spots that needed more paint, finding them, and then waiting some more. Would it ever be over?
The answer is no. If I wanted every centimeter of the frames covered perfectly, I'm certain it would never be over. Finally, as the rain clouds hovered lower and thicker in the sky, I had to declare the project done and bring the frames inside. But here is what they looked like just before that:
Now they sit on my kitchen island counter top, and if I look too closely, I see little spots where more paint is needed. And I want to cry. So I try not to look too closely.
The next step is emailing selected photos in the proper sizes to Costco (much cheaper than Walgreens, we discovered) to be printed. Shulamith tried to do this last night, but the site kept changing them all back to color, even after she edited each picture to black and white. Frustrated, she gave up and said I'd have to do it myself. And I will. At some point. Certainly not tonight. Probably not tomorrow. At some point in the future, once the trauma of this spray painting ordeal fades from memory or at least decreases in emotional intensity, I will muster the energy to tackle ordering the prints.
I hope you have enjoyed this "whining and dining" experience. Stay tuned for the continuing saga. If you want.
I hate spray paint. The air eats too much of what I have spent my hard earned cash on, and way too little of it ends up on my project. I would rather have a few brush marks. And it turns out that most of the time brush marks disappear if I use a good enough brush and paint. Although I don't know if that's the case for these frames. But they look great in this photo!
ReplyDeleteSusie,
ReplyDeleteSince I have no idea about this type of thing, it did not occur to me to use anything other than spray paint because that's how the person whose wall I'm copying did it. But if makes sense that if it's possible to spray point an object, it would also be possible to use a brush. I would say "next time," except I'm pretty sure my painting days are over. Let's hope so anyway. :-)