Monday, April 09, 2007

Me vs. Power Roller (And I Think It Won)

Sometimes you just can’t win! This weekend I had all these things I needed to get done at home and only partially accomplished one of them. This coming weekend, the new roommate and I are supposed to get together and re-paint her room. This was going to require putting Kilz on the walls to cover up the previous color. So on Saturday, I pulled out the power roller and started priming.

The process started out well, but two walls into it the paint started dripping terribly which slowed down the process considerably. Three-Fourths of the way through, I stopped getting any primer on the roller and since the can was now considerably light, I decided it was time to purchase another can of Kilz. So I cleaned up, changed clothes, and went to Lowe’s (my home away from home). When I got home, I was tired and sore, so decided to put off finishing till the next day.

Sunday afternoon, the last thing I wanted to do was finish, but I knew I needed to. So after a brief nap, I put on my painting clothes and got ready to start working again. When I went and pushed the button on the power roller, it wouldn’t work. Since it runs on batteries, I figured they were dead (this was the 2nd room I had painted since I put the batteries in). I put the roller back in the Ziploc bag (to keep it from drying out), changed clothes, and ran to Walgreen’s to get some batteries.

When I got home 15 minutes later, I heard this strange noise. I ran upstairs and the power roller had started working on its own and the bag was full of primer (at least it wasn’t all over the carpet.) So I took a break to call my mom and whine (and cry a little because I’m just sick of everything that has been going on), and took the roller apart and cleaned it up a little so that I could actually use it.

I would like to say this is where our story ends, but it doesn’t. Once I finished with the big stuff (I still have trim work to do), I took the power roller downstairs to clean it up (this is the down side to the power roller…the clean up). This didn’t go as planned either. First, some part came loose and started dripping water from the base. So I fixed that, but I couldn’t get it to work properly after that. I finally decided to forget it and opted to throw away the attachment hose and just buy a replacement hose the next time I go to use it. This meant that the clean up process was a lot more difficult and took longer than normal.

I learned today from someone who is a lot more experienced with repainting over darker colors that I’m going to have to do yet another coat of primer if I don’t want the new color to come out with a blue tint. Yeah! I think I’m going to be taking off on Thursday just to get some stuff (including this) done at home.

Stay tuned for our next episode when I try to repair my dryer myself…

4 comments:

OK Chick said...

I would like to come see your house. I want to see everything you've done. I haven't been over there since Halloween!

Stacey said...

I think after Kim gets moved in and we get re-settled we might have a cookout. I've wanted to have some sort of open house or something for a long time. Maybe I'll finally get around to it.

Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness! STACEY!!! You really have been through the ringer. But you're doing a fantastic job at the homeownership thing so stick with it. You give me hope!

Who does and does not live with you now?

Stacey said...

Melissa moved out about a month ago, Kim is moving in the end of April, but moving out in October when she and Lane get married. I can't seem to keep roommates. =o) I've decided to open "Stacey's Home for Misplaced Brides." =o) I need to post an update to the dryer and the painting. It never ends!