touch-up painting
i've been thinking about the house as not so permanent, which is hard for someone who lived in the same house from age 5 to age 18. i've been feeling sad about how a new job might mean we'd need either to sell it or rent it... yet also feeling like i wish we took more care of it - for a potential sale or rental, but also for our own enjoyment while we're here. we've been doing better, cleaning the carpets, getting to the tasks that aren't weekly or daily. ...and today, shortly after waking up, i got a bug to fix the paint scratches and gouges (mostly from the previous owner moving furniture and not-so-carefully removing the large pictures he'd hung on the walls) that have only increased in our nearly 6.5 years here.
we had some of the left-over paint in the garage (the previous owner had painted), two tubs of which had the paint color listed (yay!). some of it seemed to be ok after mixing, but one batch was definitely off. we went up to the paint store and asked them to mix a fresh quart of each of the colors, plus one shade darker, which we'd determined we needed. we'd taken paint samples from around the electrical outlets (unscrew plate, take chunk of dry wall, replace plate, no visible damage), but they weren't large enough to do official color matching. one of the paint bases was discontinued, so the guy said the sheen might be slightly off... but we figured this would be better than the scratches and gouges we'd been looking at for years (and also beter than paying $$$$ to have the entire interior repainted).
unfortunately, what looked decent yesterday and last night didn't stand up to drying + the light of day. because we know where to look, we can easily see that the color doesn't match perfectly. it's too light, but it does look better than the black scratches and nail holes, which we filled. i don't know if it's worth another attempt to match it. we don't have a better place from which to take a "sample" to bring in. (i don't want to rip off a baseboard to bring it in for color matching.) i think we're doing a pretty decent job on technique as far as the touch-ups go, but i guess i was right to be skeptical that you can lightly paint a tiny patch, feather it out, and have it seamlessly blend with the rest of the wall.
so, i don't know what we're going to do. d is downstairs painting a different wall with the lightest of the three shades. (we actually need something even darker, because the painting we did last night dried too light.) part of the problem is that the walls are such similar shades yet actually different. there are so many angles and shadows, that it's hard to tell which wall is which color... even harder to know if we were right until after the paint dries and it's essentially too late (unless we are willing to try another color).
mantra: the perfect is the enemy of the good... the perfect is the enemy of the good... the perfect is....
i wish it weren't so tempting to say "fuck it" and hire a professionaly painter to make it right.
we had some of the left-over paint in the garage (the previous owner had painted), two tubs of which had the paint color listed (yay!). some of it seemed to be ok after mixing, but one batch was definitely off. we went up to the paint store and asked them to mix a fresh quart of each of the colors, plus one shade darker, which we'd determined we needed. we'd taken paint samples from around the electrical outlets (unscrew plate, take chunk of dry wall, replace plate, no visible damage), but they weren't large enough to do official color matching. one of the paint bases was discontinued, so the guy said the sheen might be slightly off... but we figured this would be better than the scratches and gouges we'd been looking at for years (and also beter than paying $$$$ to have the entire interior repainted).
unfortunately, what looked decent yesterday and last night didn't stand up to drying + the light of day. because we know where to look, we can easily see that the color doesn't match perfectly. it's too light, but it does look better than the black scratches and nail holes, which we filled. i don't know if it's worth another attempt to match it. we don't have a better place from which to take a "sample" to bring in. (i don't want to rip off a baseboard to bring it in for color matching.) i think we're doing a pretty decent job on technique as far as the touch-ups go, but i guess i was right to be skeptical that you can lightly paint a tiny patch, feather it out, and have it seamlessly blend with the rest of the wall.
so, i don't know what we're going to do. d is downstairs painting a different wall with the lightest of the three shades. (we actually need something even darker, because the painting we did last night dried too light.) part of the problem is that the walls are such similar shades yet actually different. there are so many angles and shadows, that it's hard to tell which wall is which color... even harder to know if we were right until after the paint dries and it's essentially too late (unless we are willing to try another color).
mantra: the perfect is the enemy of the good... the perfect is the enemy of the good... the perfect is....
i wish it weren't so tempting to say "fuck it" and hire a professionaly painter to make it right.