Getting up the gumption to paint

In the name of domestic tranquility, many household tasks at Casa Schillig are left to professionals.

This includes anything that involves measuring, pasting or power tools. My definition of power tools is generous enough to encompass hammers and screwdrivers, so I consequently do very little that qualifies as “handy.” Sure, I’ll slap together “some assembly required” lawn chairs, but my work is so shoddy I don’t trust anybody except my mother-in-law to sit in them.

A few years into the marriage, my wife and I decided it would be better to hire out these jobs than endure the petty arguing that comes from doing them together. I would rather work a second (and even a third) job to pay a professional than subject myself to spousal browbeating for seven hours on a Saturday or accidentally glue shut my mouth — or hers — with wallpaper paste.

Still, every year I pick one task that I can accomplish on my own, just so I can feel manly and join in water-cooler conversations with burly co-workers who routinely knock out walls, thread electrical wire through ceilings, and bench press the foundations of their homes with a cold brew in one hand and the TV remote in the other. (Said bench pressing being accomplished with their teeth, apparently.)

This year’s project was painting the basement floor.

Actually, it was last year’s project too, but I successfully avoided it with no ill effects to my masculinity. My excuse was provided by one of those Hungry-Jack-dinner-eating contractor types who waterproofed our basement in 2009. He told me not to paint the floor until the newly poured concrete had cured, which conjured up images of Ernest Angley slapping some unfortunate upside the head and intoning, “You are healed!” but apparently is something else entirely since Mr. Angley never appeared in my basement. He recommended waiting six months to paint. (The contractor, not the Rev. Angley.)

In my mind, six months really meant a year, which I somehow stretched to almost two years, letting cobwebs build up in the corners while I pretended not to notice.

But last week I could procrastinate no longer, so I broke out the power washer (the only power tool I feel qualified to operate, since it’s really nothing more than a squirt gun made legitimate through a power cord and frequent on-box warnings) and made a big mess in the name of eliminating those cobwebs. Then I bought some paint, rollers and brushes and got to work.

They say the hardest part of painting is the preparation (“they” being the first 100 people in the phonebook), but I bet they’re not referring to mental preparation. Regardless, I wasted a lot of time pacing the basement, sighing and bemoaning my fate. One day, I even ran off to the movies, so I suppose it’s poetic justice or karma that I saw the pretty-rotten “Cowboys and Aliens.” It wouldn’t have been fair to see something good.

When I finally popped the top off the first paint can, I was surprised by how quickly the job went. I strategized successfully, relocating the cats’ litter box and food bowls to the top of the stairs (painting upsets delicate feline ecosystems), moving everything else to the center of the basement and painting the corners. The next day, I moved everything back, minus the litter box, before painting the center of the room.

The hardest part — well, after working up the gumption to start, that is — was painting my way up the steps, which involved a backward spider crawl that would be the envy of any professional contortionist. At one point, I forgot that I had already painted the handrail and used it to steady myself after all the blood rushing to my head (which at many points was lower than the rest of my body) made me dizzy. This gave me a battleship-gray palm but saved me from a potentially life-ending tumble.

I’d like to believe I didn’t kill too many brain cells by breathing in paint fumes for the last few days, and that the job really does look decent. Not professionally decent, mind you, but decent by my own inept standards, which means there isn’t too much paint on the walls and ceiling and that the places I missed are covered up by strategically placed boxes of Christmas decorations.

And even if it’s not, it’s just a basement. The only reason my wife allows me to tinker down there is that nobody except the cats will ever see it anyway, and they’re so grateful to have their litter box back in its rightful place that they won’t complain about the results.


Originally published in 2011