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Don’t mess with me or I will beat you to death with this paintbrush.

I love HGTV, largely because I like to find the flaws in their DIY shows. You know, the ones where they say WE DID ALL THIS FOR UNDER $1,000.00! AND SO CAN YOU! But you can’t because unless you know how to rewire a light fixture or hang drywall or make curtains from sheets, you will be compelled to hire someone to do it for you, and that kicks you right over the $1,000.00 mark.

I can, however, paint for myself, but it always–ALWAYS–takes me TWO coats to fully cover the walls. So when the Studly Home Improvement Guy (you know the one, on TLC, who looks vaguely like a chubby and possibly gay Brad Pitt) cracks open a can of paint and announces, “This will take about an hour!” I want to punch him in the face. or, alternatively, offer him whatever he wants to come and paint my bathroom in an hour. Using only ONE COAT OF PAINT.

Other things they don’t tell you on HGTV: the sheer number of swear words you will use during your DIY project, like when you kick the drop cloth into the paint tray for the THIRD time in five minutes, or when you realize, moments after washing out the brush, that there is ONE MORE section of wall that is too narrow to be painted with the roller, or when a piece of plaster FALLS OFF THE WALL while you are painting it.

Goddamn it.

I just keep thinking, it could be worse, we could have wall paper. At least I’ve got that going for me.

13 Comments so far

heh. my Mom’s allergic to paint so whenever a room needs painting it has to be done *very fast*. She made me paint her kitchen two years in a row. Five coats each time ‘cus she likes silly colours. Including the ceiling.

I feel your pain.

Also, I never noticed how much Henry looks like you, how adorable.

This is why, almost two years into living here, our house still has the original “Builder’s White” paint on almost every single wall. I just can’t face the prospect of painting them.

Good luck with the actual painting!

You are not helping my final solution of doing our playroom myself. This will include me painting the entire room one color and another color for the closet. At least, someone else will install the woodfloor for us.

I am really scared. One good thing, I dont have to worry about a drop cloth, because we are pulling up the carpet. Pray for me.

Jealous about the carpet Wedny b/c I was just gonna say that what really gets me about the DIY shows is they never show the part where the painter has to use a razor blade on all window panes to scrape off necessary over paint (this usually takes an extra few hours and requires a vacuum clean-up). And then there’s the part about trying to get drips and spillage off the wood floor without removing the finish representing an additional few hours full of flavorful cursing that makes for racy television.

Don’t forget everyone on HGTV can paint without getting all over themselves. Me? I usually wind up with as much on me as there is on the wall.

Shelly! Look at my shirt! I’m a walking drop cloth!

I love the woman on TLC who paints IN HER DRESS CLOTHES. What the hell??? Tonight I went to hammer the lid back on the paint can and wound up COVERED in paint. Gah.

Something about small rooms+painting always equals insta-clutz for me.

At least you’re not sporting paint in your hair!

I need to find that kind of paint that covers only in one coat. Is it magical paint? Sheesh - even nailpolish takes 2 coats to cover!

Sounds like Rachael Ray’s “30-minute meals”. Only if you’re a fast chopper with no kids running around and you’ve got all your ingredients neatly organized. Even then…

You are far more studly than I. Owining a houe made me very much decide to pay for services like this rather than doing it myself. Are you for hire??

We had the same weekend… I feel your pain. However, we were primarily doing touchups throughout the house. I was particularly thrilled when I got home and my husband said he had finished all the touch ups on all the baseboards/walls/and doors. UNFORTUNATELY … he is a boy, and he looked around and thought “hmmm. those walls look white. I’ll paint them white.” None of them are white and now I’m a crazy person trying to repair our dove white walls, dusty rose bedroom and swiss coffee hallways.

Don’t EVEN get me started. I’m STILL painting Christopher’s room, three weeks in. Two coats of primer (which I expected, so no big deal) and FOUR COATS OF PAINT later, I’m still not done. Apparently, according to a Behr representative, the color he chose is the hardest color in the Behr line to put on the walls. The hardest. In the entire line.

Do NOT, EVER, choose Behr’s Cherry Cobbler for ANYTHING.

[…] When Wade and I were getting ready to sell our last house, we knocked ourselves out doing various home improvement and repair things. Okay, we hired contractors to do most of it, but we DID do a few things ourselves. Like paint the damn bathroom. […]

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