Always at Home: Adventures in Paint

by Jason

We set a new family record today. We got our whole house painted in 11 hours! They started working at 9:30 this morning and at 8:30 tonight I turned off the lights and closed the door behind them. It would have taken us weeks to paint all that. But it wasn’t quite as simple as it sounds…

It started earlier in the week. I called our painter—the same guy who painted our last two apartments—and asked if he was available. He said he was, so on Wednesday he came to see the place and tell us how much paint to buy. We explained the color schemes a little and he told us how many gallons of each color he would need. In the past, he’s preferred to mix the colors himself—by hand, on location—but we wanted to pick some colors from a paint store and have the computer mix it.

We learned today why our painter “doesn’t trust the computers” to mix paint. You see these two lids? The numbers on them are the same! They’re supposed to be the same color, the teal one. Somehow, the computer didn’t put enough green in the second one, I guess. But my painter was able to add some tint to it and make them both the same.

Today started with a wake-up call, followed by several hours of running errands. Ahab the Painter called at 8:15 to tell me they were on the way, and would be here in “about half an hour.” At 9:15 he called again and said they were here. I walked over to our new place (just a block from our temporary place) and let them in. I showed them the paints we had bought. They started setting things up and then asked me if I had any masking tape! “Wait a minute,” thought I to myself, “aren’t they the professional painters here?” I told them I’d go look for some tape and some light bulbs, since several were missing in the new flat.

They also asked about a ladder. I have one, but it was at a friend’s house, so I told them I could bring it a little later. They started asking the doorman at the building if there was a ladder around, but there wasn’t, so he asked if he had an old barrel they could stand on to paint! (No barrel, either).

I walked to the nearest light bulb shop and got some bulbs, and that guy happened to have a few rolls of masking tape, too. Walked back to the new house and delivered that, then came back home for breakfast. After about an hour, he called back and asked about a broom and squeegee for the floor. So, I headed back down and bought those and delivered them. And came back home. Again.

I was about ready to go get the ladder when the doorman at this building brought a couple by who are thinking about buying this flat, so we spent 10 minutes showing our house. After that I did go get the ladder and delivered it to them.

We had company coming for lunch at 1:00, but at 12:30 the painter called again to tell me about the non-matching paints in the girls’ room. So I went to see it and see what to do. That’s when he volunteered to just fix it himself rather than sending me to the store to try to explain that they’re not the same color.

He thought it was going to take 2-3 days to paint all those rooms, but he ended up with 5 guys working on it rather than 2. The three extras had planned to work at another site today, but weren’t able to work there, so they all came to our house. The other reason it’s so much faster here than in the States is because the floors are all ceramic tile. So where we’d spend hours taping plastic to the floor to keep paint off the carpet, these guys just let it drip and then wipe it with a wet rag. It also dries pretty darn fast with so little humidity in the air!

I went over to see it a couple more times this afternoon. Things were progressing quickly. About 8:00 he called and said come see. We went on over and found a beautifully painted house! See for yourself...