Painting Yourself Into a Corner

Considering I took my relax day on the Saturday, Sunday turned into the day of work. More importantly, clean the house before those friends of Vero’s Dad come to check out the house on Monday! (We have since learned that they have decided not to bother coming to look at it. Not a big deal…it kicked us into high gear to clean the house up). I did some research and found out that the Salvation Army pretty well takes everything you can offer them…I brought over five garbage bags of clothes, a few old computers, a couple of computer monitors and two old bicycles that were taking up valuable real estate downstairs.

I then settled in to paint the basement stairs as my mother had suggested. I dropped over to Canadian Tire and asked for a quart of grey paint and they passed me an oil-based paint and some Varsol. No problem! It would just smell a little strong and need some chemicals to wash the brush.

I started out by throwing on a Pearl Jam bootleg on the stereo, changing into some painting clothes and placing a book and telephone in the basement because I figured I would be down there for an hour or so. I was planning on painting myself into the basement as it was definitely easier to paint going down the stairs instead of going up. I had it all planned out. The only thing I figured I didn’t need some liquids because there was no way I would be down there that long.

After painting the stairs (and I was running dangerously low on paint near the end of it!), I settled in with my U2 book (which is an excellent read, written by the band) and cozied up in my old chair that doesn’t get enough love. The time was 1PM.

After an hour, I took a look at the stairs and was thinking it may not be drying as fast as I thought it would be. The top stairs was JUST starting to dry and that was painted two hours ago. Hmm…I went back to my book.

Fifteen minutes later I’m starting to feel a little cold hanging out in my basement with a t-shirt on. I’m starting to look at my surroundings. What can I use for warmth? Of course, Vero’s Snuggie that was in the laundry basket came to the rescue so I sat back down with the Snuggie and read some more.

Fifteen minutes later and I’m thinking I should be getting ready to go to Mike’s for the Canada vs. US final Olympic game. Hmm…I wonder how the stairs are doing? After looking at them again and realizing they were nowhere near being dry, I start to think this was a bad idea. Here I was stuck in the basement of my own house and Vero was not home. It just did not add up…how come the paint was not drying as fast as it usually does?

It then dawns on me and I leave the following phone message with Mom “Mom, I’m just wondering how long does oil-based paint usually take to dry?”. Click.

Awhile later, Dad phones back and I explain the situation and you can hear Mom laughing in the background and then I believe the word turkey was used more than once. I could only laugh at myself during this time as well. It was a good story to tell!

In the end they offered up some suggestions on how to escape the basement…I couldn’t find any plastics bags for my feet so I decided to just run up the stairs and get rid of my socks afterward.

That’s how I escaped my basement before the final game of the Olympics. There are some spots that need touching up as the socks lifted a few layers of paint. I also checked the stairs out this morning and I sure hope I have enough paint left to touch all the stairs up. Otherwise another quart needs to be bought.

Lessons Learned:
– Oil-based paint takes 4-5 hours to dry.
– Oil-based paint is quite sticky.
– If you do plan on painting yourself into a corner, think in terms of ‘worst-case scenario’ instead of ‘normal scenario’
– While in ‘worst-case scenario’, supply yourself with a bucket to urinate in, a 12-pack of beer, and ensure that the TV is properly set up to watch the Olympics game. I will be honest with you…I was contemplating just staying down there for 5 hours but the thought of a) missing the game and b) setting up the tv, but not having a few beer to have during the final game, made me realize that I can sacrifice some socks.
– If you plan to leave the music on upstairs, put on a a normal length CD and not a 3 hour long bootleg of the 2005 Ottawa show by Pearl Jam. While it’s a great bootleg, I was eying up my guitar downstairs thinking I could get in a few hours of playing but the stereo was cranked and I would competing against it the entire time.
– Stick to latex paint.