Beiging It Up.

Do you ever wake up with the urge to just hurry up and get something done?  Maybe something you hadn't really thought about doing until right that second?  Well, that happened to me Monday morning.  I decided that during Madison's nap (ha!) I would paint the bathroom.

Let's go over things that can get done during one of Madison's naps.  A load or two of laundry.  A load of dishes.  Sweeping/mopping the floors.  A shower.  Painting some frames.  Heck, it only took two of her naps to finish the fence last week!  But painting the entire bathroom in one nap?  Yeah, I must have been high on paint fumes when I thought this one up.  Oh wait, that comes later in the story.

So here was the plan:

1. Put Madison down for her nap.
2. Turn off air conditioner, seal off bathroom from rest of house, and nursery from rest of house, just to be safe.
3. Paint the bathroom.
4. Clean up and put away paint and equipment.
5. Relax a little.
6. Once Madison wakes up, bring her to Nana's and PawPaw's while the paint dries.

Step one went off without a hitch, and step two was a breeze.

 Now it was time for step three, the actual painting of the bathroom.  You can see in the next picture that I was all ready to go.  I was feeling pretty good about myself at this point.

 I mixed up the paint, which was free (my favorite color, ha ha) thanks to my parents having a little leftover from painting their house.

 I dumped it into our well used paint tray.  I count four (five, with the new paint) shades represented here.  I think we may have already gotten our money's worth out of this particular piece of equipment, and she's still going strong!  Hmm.  I never thought about it before, but it does seem like a "she", doesn't it?  With as much use as she's gotten, we should probably give her a name.  I like Patty.  Patty the paint tray. 

 So after Patty was filled with our free paint, I started rolling.  Here I am about two minutes into the project.  "I'm doing so well on time, why don't I stop for some pictures?"  If I only knew.

 Since our walls are paneled, I had to roll in two steps.  First, I'd press really hard on the roller to squish all the paint into the cracks.  I believe the technical term for this technique is the "press and squish", but I could be wrong.  Oh, and for some reason the next two pictures make the new paint look greenish.  It's not at all green.  The name of the color is "Desert Fortress", and it's a nice medium beige.

 Then I would do my Trading Spaces "W's" (or was it "M's", I don't remember) to smooth it all out. 

I worked for about an hour when I heard a terrible sound...Madison woke up early - like an hour and a half early!  My mom had already offered to watch her if I needed help, so of course I called Nana, then drove Madison over and got them all set up to play, then drove back home to finish the job.  Or so I thought.

I worked for another hour.  At this point I had already rolled the whole bathroom, and "just" needed to cut in.  Here's the thing.  There's nothing "just" about cutting in our bathroom.  It's practically all cuts.  I didn't think it would be a problem; I'm actually pretty good at it.  See below?  No tape necessary.

*insert pic of me patting myself on the back here

As luck would have it, somebody got hungry before I could cut in the whole room.  And it wasn't me.  Well, actually, it was me, too, but the "somebody" to whom I am referring weighs about a hundred and thirty pounds less than I do.  For those of you counting on your fingers and toes right now, well, I'm glad you'll run out of digits before you get to the result.  : )

So I ran drove down to Mom's, fed the sweet girl, put her down for a nap in her pack n play, then came back to the bathroom.  After about forty minutes of painting in the edges (as well as portions of the toilet seat, the faucet, the floor, and our new bath mat, since the paint fumes had reached their maximum concentration at this point), I was gloriously done.  Except for the touch up, which I have yet to begin.  But it's done enough for an "after" shot!  Forgive me.  I didn't have the energy to clean the mess out of the bathroom before taking the picture.  Actually, minus the radio and disgusting towel on the floor, it still looks a lot like this.  Maybe cleaning the bathroom is something I could accomplish during one of Madison's naps.  I might give it a try...next week.  : )

Honestly, while I do think it's an improvement over the "before", it's a bit boring for my tastes.  Maybe with a new shower curtain and towel rack and other staging, I'll like it a little more.  Maybe not.  But who really cares if I like it?  It's time to appeal to the masses, yo!

Wow.  I painted on Monday, it's Thursday morning, and the fumes still have me doped up enough to type "yo".  Maybe next time I'll crack a window.   

Please note that no brain cells were harmed in the making of this post.  All necessary (and some additional) precautions were taken to protect myself and my family from any toxicity in the fumes.  It's just nice to have a handy excuse for embarrassing slips of the tongue and paintbrush.  So hang up the phone already, Mom.  Unless you'd like to come babysit.  Then you can carry on.  : )