Painting Tips by Jessica - Master of the Roller (that may be a slight exaggeration)

Last year I painted the kitchen and the hallway and a portion of the livingroom. I have learned a few things that I felt like I should pass on to you.

Painting... Instant, cheap way to redecorate!

1. The amount of paint you get on your clothes will be directly influenced by how hard you try to not get paint on your clothes. I have found the harder you try, the more you will end up wearing.

2. Do not put screws from light switch plates down "in the general area" of where you removed them. Especially if the furniture is going to be pushed into the center of the room. The general area will move to a different part of the room.

3. Do not count on the dog being uninterested in the paint. It will suddenly become the most appetizing scent on the planet and he will not rest until he figures out what it is, how to sniff it, and how to help spread it around.


4. Do not think that it is ok to get to the paint that the dog has spread around "in a quick second". Wet wash cloth - NOW is not too soon.


5. Normally climbing a short ladder (ok step stool) doesn't bother me. When you add an open gallon of paint, a roller and a brush, it suddenly becomes the most rickety peice of furniture you own.


6. Your hands are not as steady as you think. That blue painter's tape that seemed like an extra expense and step? It is, but a necessary expense and step.


7. Put a note on your front door letting people know that you are painting and it will take some extra time to answer the door. Someone will knock on the door at the most inopportune time, causing the dogs to bark like mad and tear through the kitchen in a desperate attempt to let the person at the door know you are all at home. The person will assume you live in the pound and will leave, unless they are Jehovah's Witnesses (no offense to all you JW's, but you are a persistent bunch.)


8. Don't let the kids help. I know it sounds like a cute, "fun mom" type of idea, but trying to scrape off paint from the bodies of small children and the dogs is not cute or fun. They will also manage to get paint on the $20 shirt you just bought them from Justice the week before, despite the fact that you told them to change clothes.

You think this is what it will look like... Oh no...

It will be this instead... (not my house, btw)

9. Put your hair back in a pony tail. Think about the old schoolhouse days when naughty little boys dipped pigtails of innocent little girls into the inkwells.... Well imagine that with the whole bottom left side of your hair.....
10. If all else fails, go out of town with the kids, leave the paint and the supplies out and let your husband stay behind and paint.