An oldie, but a goodie…Painting a BIG room

When we were painting the auditorium building (2005?) , we had a great plan to get two coats of paint on the room in only one day. Instead, What a DAY! Here is a note I wrote to Lyle and Ron in China…

“We are painting ourselves to death. Hope you will pray for us often…

Yesterday we tackled spraying the building inside, but found the sprayer not clean from previous usage by other party. Hose completely blocked with dry paint. With plans to paint the light first coat by early afternoon so the evening crew could put a final coat on, this is how the day actually went.

• Day started at 3:30 am. Rise and Walk
• Planned to start painting at 10 am, so we were at Home Depot (HD) at 8 am with 2 vehicles for ceiling tiles, 5 big buckets of paint. Hmm… no paint available in that finish in Gig Harbor store.
• Drop tiles at office, and both vehicles to Silverdale store for more tiles, and hopefully paint. (now 9:30)
• Store has lots of tiles, all the final coat paint. Head back with all of it (NOTE: now have 4 veh trips to HD in just under 2 hr… Keep count, as it gets interesting)
• Back at office at 11, and we cannot locate the manual for sprayer.
• 11:30 Go home for early lunch and call around to “Borrowers” to trace the missing manual
• 1:00 Return to office to paint after a “power nap”
• still no manual, but have some memory of use. Stir paint, prepare area and start spraying… clogged line
• 2:00 to Home Depot, Gig Harbor again. Get spayer nozzle (after locating the ONLY paint clerk) (trip 5)
• ($135 and several hours later, it’s now 2:45. Hook new spray gun to NEW hose and the new gun pours paint out of fittings, and nothing from sprayer worth using!
• 3:30 Cannot use new gun. Clean and return it to HD by 4 PM (trip 6)
• 4:30 Return to office and find Mr Hughes has cleaned original spray gun with solvent, per rental store help (WE own the machine, but they have been SO helpful!)
• Manual has been located and delivered…so helpful!
• 5:PM, workers arrive to spray second layer and find the first just starting. Workers start rolling on the “recycled paint” provided by Mr Turk. By now it has clogged the sprayer so badly, I am sent to HD to get MORE PAINT, drywall primer, to replace donated paint, which can still be rolled on, but not sprayed. (trip 7)
• 8:30 PM Ran out of primer. Run to HD again (trip 8: Store clerks now ask, “are you STILL HERE?” and “are you BACK AGAIN?” LOL)
• 9 PM still painting, but workers dropping off fast. Finish almost the big room, back rooms, 2 baths, most of hall, some beams. (TIRED.. Hubby now lame)
• 10 PM home at last, too painful to sleep. Still lame.”