I LOVE to paint!!!!

This is the phrase emitted from your friends when they find out you are moving to a new place.  “I’ll come over and work on painting for you!”

What this translates to is “I want to come over and do the easy part and get instant gratification with minimal outlay of effort”.

Rolling paint on a wall is as hard as walking, and is by far, the most trivial and easiest part of “painting”.

Now, these people mean well, and totally sincere in their offers;  they just don’t understand the process of painting.  For those of you who are not aware of this process, I shall outline it now.

Figure out color.

Go to store, get a quart of your color.

Paint a little on wall, don’t like it, return to store for another quart.

Repeat five times, each time in heavy traffic.

Buy gallons according the spread rate on the can.

Spend a half a day on the floor taping plastic to cover the floor and other things.

Tape all trim in house.

Remove all outlet plates and light switch plates.

Tape up around or remove ceiling fans

Caulk all trim joints in entire house.

Repair problems, holes, etc.

Friends call, “can we come paint now?”

Purchase and arrange several pans, rollers, and brushes for the crew.

Gather 100 dollars to order pizza for the crew for their “work”.

Friends start painting walls since ceiling is boring white and offers no gratification.

They very rapidly finish all walls (for 3 people, probably  2 hours total).

“Oh just look at that new color!”.

Feed crew.

Crew goes home.

Begin process of 2^nd coat.

Clean all brushes, rollers, pans and such, a lengthy process, trust me.

Paint ceiling.

Get trim brush and start cutting in the color at the ceiling.

Paint with brush around every piece of trim.

Do 2^nd coat of trim paint.

Fix all drips.

Clean tools.

Color all light spots on wall missed by crew.

Remove and dispose of all plastic drop cloths

Re-install all wall plates and outlet plates.

Remove tape from all trim.

Final coat of wall paint to cut in where tape got on wall.

I'd say that the task of rolling paint on the walls represents about 5% of the total task of painting.