From Grits to Chopsticks

Since we moved into our apartment, we’ve been wanting to repaint the walls in our guest room and study (bright pink and dirty green respectively).  We’ve always been kind of do-it-yourself house painters, but this time, we decided to hire a locally recommended painter to do the honors.  After paying for some decent quality paint, the labor charge (~$25) for the multiple coats on both rooms seemed like a wise way to steward our time and money.

Advance preparation is not the strong suit for some of the local maintenance professionals, and painters fit into that category as well.  Early in the process, he asked to use one of our dining room chairs for access to the highest part of the wall, but then, needed to improvise with another chair and stool to really reach the top.  All of my former DuPont nerve fibers were cringing:

Although he made a token effort to put down some of the newspapers we had accumulated, we soon realized that he was being paid to paint the walls, not to avoid painting the floors.  At the end of the first day, he came walking through the dining area into the living room asking for “shui, shui” (water).  We quickly routed him toward the bathroom shower area, watching the paint drip a steady path from the bucket he was carrying.  In the bathroom, he cleaned his gear and was probably challenged by the presence of a western toilet instead of the usual squattie potty:

Although Susan probably spent about 3 hours cleaning up after our painter, the rooms definitely look better than before.  In our world things will never be perfect, so it’s best to be content with “better than.”  We also had him paint some furniture that was left by the landlord, making it a bit more functional.  Here are the before and after shots of the bunk beds and study walls: