… even when it is “Gratifying Green”.

The weekend is nearly over much to my chagrin (yours too I’m sure).

Unfortunately, Saturday started out soggy, putting a kibosh on the morning walk, but, it gave me time to get a head start on my basement painting project.

You may recall my unfortunate plumbing disaster in June where the pipe beneath the laundry tub corroded and fell apart.  Water was pooling beneath the tub and trickling toward the drain.  It was a sickening hot weekend and my A/C hose drains into the laundry tub.  That most-unfortunate event had me calling the plumber pronto.  While the plumber and his helper were here, I was told the basement drain was a little clogged, but he cleaned it out with a screwdriver and said it was good for now.  But, I decided to be proactive and have them clean it out properly.  This necessitated the use of a jackhammer to drill down two feet to completely clear the drain.

The basement floor is tiled and the jackhammer destroyed some of the tiles, so I was left with a donut-shaped mound of cement in the middle of the laundry room.  It looked pretty bad.  More tiles needed to be taken out to even it up before painting, resulting in a 4 X 4 foot bare-looking area.

I had to wait 30 days for the cement to completely cure, so, in the meantime I got all my supplies together.  First, I got paint chips and tried to match the pale green and beige-flecked tiles as best I could, so I picked a color that was a cross between sea salt and pastel green.  As you know, paint manufacturers have a multitude of colors available, and a corresponding, sometimes cutesy name for each hue.  The color I chose was “Gratifying Green”.

The clerk at the paint store recommended using a roller, but I said I preferred a brush as it was a relatively small area.  “No, you must use a roller to get a better result; a 4 ½-inch roller would be just perfect for your job” she said.   So, despite my protestations about preferring a brush, I left the store with not only my paint and masking tape, but a tray, roller frame and and a four-pack of roller covers.

In anticipation of this project, I was ruminating on how I was going to do this multiple-coat paint job.  Would I use a kneeling pad, or sit on a short stool?  Either way, my lack of flexibility and wild imagination, had me conjuring up several likely scenarios.  I pictured myself needing help to get back to a standing position since it was smack in the middle of the laundry room, especially if, God forbid, I should see a crawling insect zip past me and had no way to scramble to my feet quickly.

I grumbled about this impending project to my friend Evelyn, whose husband Tim is a professional interior/exterior painter.  She suggested I get a long-handled pole or jerry-rig a long stick to the handle of the roller.  “Good idea” I thought “why didn’t the clerk tell me to do this?”  (Probably because Evelyn and I are the same age and the Sherwin-Williams clerk was about twenty years old.)

Saturday morning’s weather was pretty ugly, but there I was, removing the stringy-yarn mop head from the handle to create a makeshift, long-handled roller frame pole.  Now, to bind the roller to the pole.  Well … old pantyhose didn’t work, and neither did half of the roll of masking tape that I bought to tape off the tile floor for the painting project, so … I decided just to bend over and roll the paint on that way.

Problem solved.

Now, others in the past tried their best to persuade me to use a roller instead of  a brush for a painting project, and I merely  brushed off their comments.  I once repainted the garage door with two coats of paint, with half the neighbors stopping by to tell me that had I used a roller, I would be sitting and sipping a cold drink, not to mention salvaging most of my long holiday weekend.

But, this time I was willing to give it the old college try.

Okay, I’ll concede – they were right.  I was finished that 4 X 4 foot project in record time.  I only had to take a small, spongy gizmo to apply the paint around the metal drain area.  Then, I could have a snack and busy myself with housework upstairs until I could return for the second coat after about six hours’ drying time.

Except first, I needed to take the roller off the frame.

How difficult could that be, right?

I struggled with it, pulling, pushing and prodding the ^%$# thing to extricate that nappy object from the roller frame.  I was wearing vinyl gloves to keep my hands from turning  a pale shade of green, so I WAS able to grip the roller tight to pull it off.  But, nope, it was stuck on there.  No amount of tugging and no magic button would release the roller from the frame.

Grrrrr.

Well, as Kermit the Frog would bemoan “it’s not easy bein’ green” and, though I realize that I was really “green” about roller painting, this was ridiculous!

I must admit a few choice words for the people who suggested using a roller, as well as the manufacturer of the handle and roller itself escaped my mouth.

Next, I tried rinsing that nappy roller under the warm water, thinking I could grab it with my ungloved hand, but all that did was send paint splats all over the wall, floor and into the laundry tub.

I threw the contraption in the trash, vowing next time to listen to myself.

So, I got two coats of paint applied yesterday and was downstairs today at 5:15 a.m. applying coat number three.  I don’t care if it was a slow and rather painstaking process, I told myself “I’ve got this!”

I peeled off my vinyl gloves and hurried upstairs for coffee and breakfast, to get going on a walk.  I took the car and drove to the Park so I could walk two complete laps, then cool off in the car when I finished.  There was a bit of a breeze and it was tolerable so the car and I both got four miles today.

While I walked in the Park, someone had already “rocked the Park” as evident from this painted rock at the cement precipice.  Its ghastly looking “face” (also pictured above) mirrored mine right around the same time yesterday.

I put the finishing touches on my own paint job when I returned from my walk and declared it done.

By the way … I finished the remaining three coats with a one-inch brush that I had saved from a prior paint job.   I did not struggle unduly with this small brush and it looks just as nice as the first roller coating of paint.  (However, the fact that it took me twenty minutes to straighten up to my full 5 foot, 9 inches height at each successive painting job is another story.)

Life … sometimes we gotta just grrrrrin and bear it.

The color is glaringly bright in the dim-colored laundry room, but, I figure I had a 50/50 chance of matching the color to the tiles.  The paint swatch looked perfect, but in hindsight a beigey shade would have worked better.

Using Sherwin-Williams color “Easy Green” would have been a tad easier on the eyes.

Using a paint brush for the entire job would have been easier on the pocketbook, not to mention the nerves.

But, the color I picked was “Gratifying Green” and I am SO gratified this project is finished.