Heirloom Lace and Rick at HOME DEPOT

At HOME DEPOT I talked a little ‘resilient vinyl tile flooring’ with a worker and found that for today it is outside my scrawny sad budget. I plan on sending my three girls to look at the selection and maybe purchase the amount we need for our 5’x9’ basement bathroom. He also browsed toilets and sinks with me, the cheapest throne would suffice and I like the look of the pedestal type sinks. I walked away from it all today though hoping to at least afford paint, fingers crossed.

I did purchase a gallon of paint. With NANOGUARD technology - high performance - built in primer - ultra satin - durable - stain resistant - scuff resistant - mar resistant - easy clean - pearly sheen - ideal for high traffic areas (the can is pretty nifty too - has a handle on). My colour choice: Heirloom Lace (it sounds knitty, yeah?)

Although I won’t remember everything Rick had to say about my bathroom project, I appreciate the time he took with me, knowing that I’ve never done this kind of thing before. He enthusiastically familiarized me with all the details of each choice of paint ideal for my bathroom walls, their texture and reflective qualities, and whether they hide imperfections in their surface very well or not, and their cleaning and care, as well as how they are different from what was previously available.

He went over the steps for doing my walls and ceiling right. My gyp rock seams are taped and puttied already (if that’s what the white-over stuff is called - I don’t know) but need to be sanded; Rick explained the sanding process and demonstrated the angling of a flash light to best see the imperfections in the walls and how marking them with scotch tape helps to indicate areas for further smoothing out or filling in. Once the wall surfaces are perfect the best paint application method is to make a W in a small area and cover it over, make another W beside and cover it over - going over the same spot more than three times will result in a less than smooth surface because the paint is designed to dry so quickly. Leave it a day and do a second coat. He also gave me brochure of practical painting tips.

I had no idea there was so much to know about paint - I though I would walk in, choose a colour, wait while it shakes and voila homeward.

This evening we start with basic cleaning including shooing away my eight legged tenants. Maybe some sanding.