Today, I am going to my brother-in-law's house to paint.
Which is also my sister's house, but when it's about painting, I say it's my b-i-l's house.
Because I have had several disasters there, which is actually unlike me when it comes to painting, but he has unsuspectingly returned home to each of the disasters, and has never banned me from the property. Which is awfully nice, I think.
Two of the disasters involved spray paint. And let me just tell you right now, no matter what the books say (I always read instructions before experimenting), spray paint indoors DOES NOT WORK. Not for stencilling or anything else. Despite your VERY BEST EFFORT, it will lightly and unobtrusively drift across the floor, and you won't even notice until your b-i-l comes home, walks across the floor, and says, "Why are my socks turning blue?"
(That's when I left.)
OR, despite your very best Martha-Stewart-style paper shield around the sprayer, the dark blue paint (aimed at the stencil at the top of the wall) will splatter all over the freshly painted, crisp white ceiling.
(Again, I left.)
OR, the very worst time, was when he and I (and my sister) were all working frantically to finish my nephews' room while they were away. Again, I had read the instructions. And I had learned from the past, so I confirmed the instructions with a salesperson who knew what they were doing. I was ready to go. Had a little tool and special paint to magically create a wood-grain fence on the wall.
Didn't work. Just didn't show up at all.
I couldn't leave. I wanted to. My b-i-l was so kindly pretending that he couldn't hear me whispering to my sister, "I don't really know what to do...."
In the end - I grabbed a completely wrong tool, and did it the wrong way, and it worked great.
And since then, no more disasters.
Hopefully there will be no disasters today.
