Painting Myself Into a Corner

Well, sort of ... not really ... but it sounded like a good title! Now that my back is no longer giving me grief and I've managed to recover from my bout of the flu that left me feeling like the equivalent of a wrung-out dishrag, I've had the chance to start working on the paint in Amanda's room again. Even though it is one pain-in-the-behind paint job, I think that when it's finally done it's going to look pretty cool.

This shot is of one of the corners of the room and as you can see, I've got both the black and white stripes done in this section. There's only partial red on one of the windows because I was checking the color to see if it was going to work and how many coats it's going to take being that red is a very tricky color to work with. I was kind of hoping that perhaps Amanda would decide that she liked the current gray trim just fine but she's quite taken with the red. I do have to admit that it looks pretty good against the stark black & white but unfortunately it's going to take about three coats to get the color right.

From this angle, you can see one of the closet doors and the third window as well as the rickety ladder that Amanda is afraid to stand on. I know it looks like the wall is bent but that's just an optical illusion from the stripes. Actually trying to take pictures in the room is pretty tricky overall as everything comes out looking like an optical illusion! I think, though, that when it's all done and finished, it's really going to be quite an awesome room.

Of course, being done and finished is still going to take some time. I completed taping off the stuff I need to paint but didn't have time to actually start painting again as it was getting late last night by the time I finished and today I'm off to my other job at Mohegan Tribal Dispatch (I haven't been down there since before Christmas and I've probably forgotten more than I remember at this point). Wednesday is, of course, a double shift at American but I'm hoping to at least be able to get one coat of black paint rolled onto the remaining 13 stripes before I have to go into work Thursday afternoon and then get a second coat on Friday before work. With any luck I'll have all of the striping done by Saturday - woohoo!

Once the stripes are finally completed then Amanda and I will start on the red paint for the trim. I may have to spend some time showing her just how to hold a paintbrush and not be quite so heavy-handed but one way or another, the kid who came up with this great idea is going to help out as there is no way I'm going to crawl around on the floor painting baseboards. We all know what happens with me and baseboards, don't we?! Exactly! I don't need any more trips to the Emergency Room! Besides, if the kid really wants to be an artist someday, this will be really good practice for her when it comes to the "struggling" part!