Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Julia Child would be proud...and I'm not talking cooking.

Okay y'all. So, I will make this as short and sweet as is humanly possible for me. I know, that is a stretch, but so are the yoga pants that I have on...
Lowe's has truly disappointed me. My mother-in-law moved out this past weekend and we decided to give Caroline back her old room which was builder's beige, then pink, then beige/blue, and is now pink again. We turned her old room...old as in the one that she has been in for the past 6 months, not the old one as in her original one...oh, for Pete's sake, now I am even confused....Where was I? Oh yeah, it is now an office. Soooo, I go to one of the stores that I am sure they have at the strip mall in Heaven, "Lowe's", to get some paint (this mall will also include Hobby Lobby, Anthropologie and Chipotle in case you were wondering). Well, I decided upon a lovely pale pink, because if you know my daugther, she loves pink. I decided upon "Chalk Pink 1" by Laura Ashley. I asked for 1 gal. of primer tinted to match the paint & 1 gal. of satin paint. They sent me home, unknowingly (to me, that is) with 1 gallon of OIL-BASED Kilz primer and 1 gallon of LATEX paint. I didn't realize this little faux pas until I had already cut in the top half of the ceiling and around the doors (I didn't do the bottom because I was going to use that wainscotting wallpaper on the bottom half, but that is another disaster that I will go into detail about in a later post.), and was trying to clean out my brush with water. Ummm, yeah, that is when I realized that something was awry. I called Lowe's, told them my situation and they ("they" as in lady that was working the paint desk) told me that it was "fine". Apparently, I had nothing to worry about because it was primer and you can put latex paint over oil-based primer. That is what people do when they want to change from oil to latex. At least, that is what she said. Let me go ahead and say that I didn't believe her, but she is paint desk girl, and I am not. It isn't in my wheelhouse. Well, let's just say that it wasn't "fine" as paint desk girl said. It took twice as much paint (which equates to twice the time and four times the frustration) to get it to look right. (I have to add the disclaimer that the Lowe's manager confirmed my suspicions and discounted our next 2 gallons 50%...thank you very much.)

Needless to say, it isn't perfect, but my quest for paint perfection ended after the 45th coat of paint...and the realization that my husband was cutting in with my pastry brush.

1 brilliant things my peeps said about this:

Jenni said...

Oh no! Lowe's can be hit or miss sometimes at the paint desk! And bless your heart, they made a lot of extra work for you! It sounds like a pretty pink color though! :)

I hope you and your family are doing well! :) Have a good week!