Again another story about the wood flooring but this time I had an EPIC FAIL due to lack of previous preparation and ignoring clues. Mike got the flooring all done in the main room of the family room. The baseboards he removed were left for me to sand and paint. I LOVE to paint! Much better than pounding nails and boards so the work was divided pretty well.
A few years ago my mother and I painted the family room a beautiful mocha color on the walls and a semi gloss latex dark cream color on the baseboards, cupboards and trim. The colors were a far cry better than the olive green walls and YELLOW trim that the previous owners had painted. So now I was sure that dark cream would be a great complement to the new darker wood flooring. Couldn't wait to be done and finished with the baseboards on.
With about 75 feet of baseboard to work on, I got busy! The sanding was accomplished easily with a little hand held electric sander in the garage. Second step was to fill the previous nail holes with some wood putty and let that dry, then lightly sand again.
I chose to paint the boards on a long table in the basement due to all the dust and chill in the air in the garage. I was so excited to paint the baseboards! Here is where the problem started. I went to the stash of old left over paint cans in the basement. Does everyone have that kind of stash? There were several of them and most were "marked" with a little smear of the paint in the can on top of the lid. I found the one with a cream colored paint spot on it and tried to open the lid. My first clue should have been when the lid was absolutely STUCK with paint on top of the can. Mike was called in to the rescue and he had to destroy the can to open it. We carefully poured the leftover paint into cottage cheese containers and I began to paint those boards.
Now in my defense, I will remind you that I was painting in the basement.... lighting was not that good down there. I managed to put not one, but two coats on those baseboards. They looked beautiful so I left them to dry and proudly pronounced that they were ready to be put back on the walls yesterday while I was gone for the day.
When I checked in yesterday with my husband he proudly told me that he had nailed all the baseboards back up and I would have just a bit of touch up to do. I was so excited to get home and see the finished room that I could hardly wait to get in the door after an 8 hour day working my business. Then he mentioned casually that the new boards did not quite look the same as the rest of the woodwork. That was nagging clue #2.
When I got home and saw my room all done, my heart sank. Those boards were not at all the same color as the rest of my painted woodwork! They were light cream! What had gone wrong? Suddenly I had a revelation and went running into the basement to check the paint can stash again. There it was! A partial can of paint that had been marked with a sharpie... "family room trim". Ugh..... no wonder the paint I used had the lid stuck.. it was some from the previous home owner's projects so it was at least 12 years old! I don't even think it is still anywhere in the house... but if it is, I won't know where.
Needless to say, I spent 2 hours on the floor last night taping around 75 feet of baseboard above and below, and then repainting them all with the right color of paint. It was a labor of love and I was grateful that I actually had paint left over the right color that I had labeled clearly on the lid those few years ago.
It reminded me of LABELING. That last attention to detail when a project is done, that I don't do frequently enough. Last week I was looking for my frozen stock of alfredo sauce for Journey and I pulled out and thawed the frozen pineapple juice I had saved. Because I did not mark the container. So in reality, this is the second time that labeling (or lack of it) has caused me problems.. So here are some ideas I have implemented.
Mark everything canned and frozen with a label of some sort with the contents and date made. Use a sharpie to do this if it is a permanent container. Otherwise a dry-erase marker will do the trick on some items.
Here is another good idea. Use a dry erase marker to write on the washer and dryer. I marked the very top of the dryer yesterday with the day I began using my SmartKlean laundry ball so that I would know when it was time to be replaced. Did I really think I would remember when one year was up? Have you ever thrown a load of clothes in the washer with one delicate item that needs to be hung to dry? A few weeks ago I did that and forgot when it was time to put the clothes in the dryer, shrinking one of my favorite (and fairly new) shirts. So I now keep a dry erase marker by the washer so I can write a note to myself (or my helpful husband) detailing if I have a special care item in that load. It wipes off easily from the surface of the washer.
So all in all, it was a learning experience and no permanent harm was done (except to my shirt). I will invest in a few markers to keep all over the house now and label everything as I go!
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