Recently I got a phone call from a new client on a Monday afternoon saying that she had a “painting emergency.” I was very intrigued by this message and called her right back. This is her story. While her husband was out of town for a week she decided to paint the master bedroom a dark chocolate brown and paint the ceiling a mocha color. The paint job was a big surprise for her husband. She called in a couple friends to help and they started painting. She told me that the job was not going well at all, it looked awful and could I come save her. I had gotten a cancellation for the next day and had planned to go play golf so I was torn. Play golf or save her…..
My higher self prevailed and I showed up the next morning to see what I could do. It wasn’t as bad as I expected but it wasn’t great. The women had done no prepping of the walls at all. This means that they had not washed, sanded, filled nail holes, or anything else. All the things I do to ensure a great paint job that will last a long time. The ceiling was the tough part as it was a textured ceiling and there were patches of white visible through the mocha all over the place. We went over them with a roller and then had to go back and look for individual spots to cover with a paint brush. This was nasty work! I got her started on that job, while I took on getting a second coat of paint on the walls. The paint was interesting. It was a low VOC paint made by Benjamin Moore and it looked kind of like brownie batter. The day before a light bulb had exploded into the paint can, so the women had strained it through a kitchen sieve to get out the pieces of glass. The paint had some weird chunks in it that I had to pluck off the wall. All the furniture was still in the room, so moving around and getting access to the walls was challenging.
In the end we were successful and the final product look great. I am still waiting to hear what her husband had to say when he saw his “surprise.”
