Wasn't planning on writing anything today but as usual, things didn't go as planned!!! Was having a cup of coffee this am while reading Houzz - this great home design website. Happened to see an article on laundry room makeovers and decided to paint my laundry room ie laundry closet. My laundry facilities are in a hallway at the back of my house between the backdoor and the door from my garage. I've always hated laundry areas in hallways but when looking for a house, this was the least of my concerns. The closet had bi-fold doors on it but after replacing them once and continually having to fix them, I decided to remove the doors completely. It's been this way for a year or so but I had never painted this closet and it was looking pretty shabby. I happened to have a full gallon of paint left from my hallway painting project and proceeded to paint away. I didn't have any roller covers with my painting supplies but since I was doing two coats and it was small space, I decided to paint the first coat with a brush, particularly since I had a lot of cutting in to do around the electrical and shelving.
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| First coat of paint |
Not a big space to paint but since it houses my washer, dryer and water heater, a little bit of a squeeze and it doesn't help that all I have is the hallway to move the appliances around. Whomever had painted before had used a high gloss paint so my eggshell wasn't covering very well. I was just about finished with my first coat of paint when I did something that I've never done before in all my years of painting, I moved the ladder to get into the corner better and the entire gallon of Dunmore Cream crashed to the floor!
It seemed like I stood there staring at the mess for a very long time, trying to decide what to do. The paint had also splattered all over me so I grabbed the can and ran through the garage to the back yard where I set down the almost empty can of paint and kicked off my favorite old pair of Uggs slippers. I then ran back inside with two dust pans and proceeded to scoop up as much of the paint as I could and deposit it into my paint pan so at least I'd have paint to finish my project.
Now came the debate - do I just let it dry and peel it off or wash it up. Ran to my computer and typed in 'spilled a gallon of paint on my hardwood floors' and it seemed that the best advice was to pour cat litter on the wet paint, let it soak up as much as possible, clean away the cat litter and then wash with soap and water. Fortunately I do have a cat so this is what I decided to do.
After about an hour, I was able to get most of the area cleaned up. Some of the paint splashed into my heating duct so I had to take that apart to clean. The paint on the garage carpeted stairs and cement floor are going to be constant reminders of my little incident. My poor Uggs are goners - they were old and worn and even torn but I loved wearing them around the house when I'm doing projects because they are super comfortable but also have the hard soles so I can run outside or into the garage with them on and they give me some support on a ladder. So sad! I'm thankful though that I have light colored floors and that the paint was also a light color. If the paint had been darker, I'm sure you would still be able to see it in the cracks of the flooring. I have a feeling I will be finding spots of Dunmore Cream in places that it just isn't supposed to be!
After I was satisfied that I had cleaned up the best that I could, I ran out to the hardware store to get some roller covers and was ready to start my second coat of paint. Finished the closet in no time and happy that my space looks a little better than before I started (despite the accident and that I now have to replace my dust pans). The can for the paint was pretty smashed from the fall so I poured the rest of the paint into a glass gallon pickle jar that I have been saving for who knows what - labeled it with paint name, number, manufacturer and what rooms I've used it in. Need to let the walls dry a bit before finishing up and hanging some hooks and putting everything away.
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| Newly Painted Laundry Area |
One word of caution though about dryers. I love listening to Richard McKann's Home Improvement radio show on the weekends when I'm out and about. He recently was talking about being careful working with dryers because they use 240 volt and that amount of voltage could kill you. As I was pulling the dryer into the hallway, I decided it would be best to unplug it. As I touched the plug I heard a pop and a spark. Scared me a bit so I turned off the breaker. You could see on the plug a slight burn mark. Not sure why that happened but in hindsight, I should have turned off the breaker first before even going near that plug. I was worried that perhaps I had blown something out but after pushing the dryer back into place, plugging it in and turning the breaker back on; everything seemed to be working fine - thank goodness. Just a reminder though when working with anything electrical but especially any appliance that has the larger, three pronged type outlet - warning that this is 240 volt. Shut off the breaker before you do anything!
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