I stepped off the chair right into the paint pan that my son Zeke had just set on the floor. My bare foot slid down the paint slippery incline of it right down into the pond of paint causing me to lose my balance. My other foot landed on the open paint can. I fell backward against the wall I had just painted 5 minutes earlier. I had paint from shoulder to rump and it was oozing between my toes. The good news is that I was totally unhurt and no paint had spilled! A small miracle!

We laughed about it as I had hopped to the bathtub to wash my foot... and discussed the appropriate place to set down one's paint pan. Zeke and I painted the living room this week and we were weary of it by the time of this mishap. What we thought would be a simple one day chore hauled out into 3 days of drudgery. It took 3 coats of paint (at $25 a gallon). I had only purchased enough for 2 coats so when we discovered that the new lighter color was not going to completely cover the old darker one I sent my son, Kevin, back for more. Unfortunately, they had not put my order into the computer as they were supposed to and the paint chip I sent with Kevin didn't come in "eggshell", only in Flat or Semi-gloss. Big news to me since teh original sales person had offered it and sold it to me as such. So new salesperson just mixed up what she thought was right and sent it home with Kev.

Of course, we painters knew nothing of all this since Kev just brought the paint back set it down and left again without giving the details of the purchase. I had been painting all the corners and edges while Zeke was rolling out the middle. He started with the new paint. It looked as if it didn't match but he was laying wet paint on dry so it never does look like it will match. It wasn't until we thought we were finished and the paint was dry that we discovered that none of the edges matched the middle.

We had to repaint all of the edges with the new paint. Edging is the worst part of apinting and we were both so sick of painting by then. My shoulder ached from raising my arm above my head painting next to the ceiling. Now my house is painted...but not in the color that I had originally chosen but by the time we finished I was so sick of painting that it could have been barf green and I would not have cared.

Lesson learned:
1. Make sure you have enough paint to begin with and that your order was exactly entered into the computer.

2. Pay attention to where you set your paint pan, can, brush, etc.

3. Watch where you put your feet!

4. Throw your paint roller out and buy a new one when you need it. It takes forever to wash out all of the paint...no exaggeration. Paint rollers are cheap.

5. Watch for drips that don't show up until you have moved on. They are hard to fix once the paint is dry.

6. Make sure you really like your paint partner.

7. A puddle of paint spilled while holding your paint pan and not paying attention will come out of your carpet if the color is similar enough, you have a big spoon to scoop up as much as you can, you have several wet towels you don't care if get ruined, and you have a good shop vac to suck up the water you ahve poured on several times to dilute the paint after each toweling.