Writing about watching paint dry
I painted my bathroom and learned that perfection isn't necessary in DIY projects.
It all starts out so promising and precise.
Clean, straight lines of green frog tape demarcate the areas to shield from the paint. A bucket of sugar soap solution sits primed and ready to wash the walls clean. Neatly arranged dust sheets are in place to protect the carpet from unexpected blobs of emulsion. Your rollers and brushes lie clean and pristine in their trays, ready to, well, roll.
I’m painting a room, and it’s starting off well.
The first brushstroke—much like the first pancake—is the worst. You’re limbering up like a boxer waiting to begin their bout, this time against a semi-gloss opponent. You lather the brush with a hopeful-looking quantity of Polished Pebble (Dulux; £8.80/litre) and splodge it artlessly onto the virgin surface. You wince slightly as it flattens onto the speckled texture of the bathroom wall and seeps thickly with colour, too quickly. You hurry to spread it.
I’ve started the project in earnest, and this is me for the next hour or two.
Soon you’re comfortably cutting in, working your way inwards from the edges and perimeters. The lines of masking tape guide and strengthen you, giving you an air of invincibility as you convince yourself that this is foolproof: no paint can leak through onto the clean white tiles below, or so you hope. There’s a damp cloth nestled jauntily in your belt loop, these jeans already sacrificial cloth to the splashes and daubs of the paint gods. You haven’t had to use it yet, either.
I’m now beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t have skipped the masking tape for the ceiling.
Out comes the roller, its soft brush hiding the traces of the chemical bath it was briefly exposed to after its last outing. Tendrils of Forest Green still cling to its downy surface in spite of the paint thinner soaking it endured. You dip it into far too much paint in one go and nervously roll some of it off again in the tray, worrying vaguely at the thick sound it makes against the plastic. You raise it to the wall and try not to notice the droplets of paint that rain briefly from the edge. You slap it against the wall and try to remember to paint an M shape – or was it a W? Either way, avoid straight lines. You roll.
I’m painting a room, and I’m beginning to get bored.
Onto the next wall and your arms are aching a little now. You decide to just eyeball the ceiling joint rather than climb onto the stool to see better, and you quickly flick paint onto the pristine white of the ceiling. No matter; out comes the damp rag and you’ve undone the damage. This is how the professionals do it, right? No paint shields or masking tape, just hand-eye coordination and a steady wrist. This is easy. For a brief moment you enter a zen-like state of pure flow, where the paint moves effortlessly from your brush to the edge of the wall, filling each crevice and dip daintily. Then you breathe out and shift position and—oh no—you’ve painted a streak of off-white matte on the wrong surface.
I’m up close to my work now and noticing all the imperfections.
First coat done, now let it cure for… six hours? That seems too long. It’ll be dry to the touch in ten minutes, let alone an hour. You just want to be done with it now, bored of paint, tape, brushes and edges. One of the mini rollers you ambitiously tried turned out to be laced with tiny dirt particles you’ve just had to painstakingly pick out. You dripped paint onto the hoover, and possibly the kids’ toothbrushes. The audiobook you were listening to has just finished and your hands are too dirty with paint to pick your phone up and put another one on. You need a coffee.
I’m regretting the choice of colour now it’s dry and wondering if this was all a huge mistake.
Peace; let your arms breathe and conclude that nobody really gives a shit about paint and walls anyway. That corner where the previous decorator left a big lump of dried-on paint? You never noticed it until today, and neither will anybody else. The part above the door frame where no-one will ever look? Doesn’t matter that you didn’t go all the way to the edge. It’s dark up there anyway. The PolyFilla covering the wallplugs that you probably should’ve spent more time sanding before painting? This too shall pass. You sigh.
I have finished painting the bathroom and I’ve done my decorating penance for another year or so.
Mini-feels this week
Turns out I don’t need all those screens
As part of my new job preparation, I’ve rearranged my home office (yes, it’s #ShedNews!) and switched the layout a little – new job, new me, and all that. I also decided to finally admit to myself that I don’t need three screens.
Yes: a laptop and two monitors seems to be the minimum viable setup for anyone working in tech these days. In reality, you probably need an ultra-HD curved monitor and some kind of VR headset if you want to work at a Big Tech org, but I’m just not that guy.
What I did do, though, was… buy a monitor arm. Look at it:
Monitor on one side, laptop on the other. Now the Macbook is raised off the desk, I’m actually using the hideously-expensive screen it comes with, rather than ignoring it because it’s out of my eyeline. And the third screen? Gone. I don’t have enough eyes to make use of it, or enough headspace to multitask all the things I could display on these screens. Get rid of anything that doesn’t bring you joy – or at least, get rid of things that show you push notifications.
For all the shed fans (you know who you are), here’s the new setup in all its glory:
Thanks for reading this week’s slightly-experimental email! And I hope you enjoyed the photos. See you next week!
— Matt