DIY Trouble

We played a game last Sunday with some friends called "Loaded Questions."

Ever heard of it?

Someone reads a question, everyone writes down an answer,

then that someone has to guess who said what.

There was a lot of laughing involved.

One question was, 

"What always takes more time than you thought it would,

and still never turns out as good as you thought it would?"

We agreed to ignore the many inappropriate answer choices.

Then, it took me all but two seconds to write down:

"Pinterest projects."

When they read through all the answers, I immediately knew Michael's:

"My spouse's Pinterest projects."

Poor guy. And I think he even wrote his answer faster than I wrote mine.

I can't blame him. Our latest project beat.us.down.

We learned a lot of lessons, all of them the hard way.

The upside: When SO many things go wrong,

the situation becomes funny now instead of later.

Up above is our entertainment center we inherited from some 4th year dental students,

who moved out right when we moved in (so nice of them!).

I decided it was meant to be red. Simple, achievable goal, yes?

False.

You guys. 

Pinterest and blogs...they deceived us. 

They make things sound so simple. We make things so complicated. 

So, pride swallowed, here are all our lessons learned:

(and all you painters and professional Pinteresters out there are not allowed to judge.)

• Don't listen to Ace Hardware Man who tells you spray paint is the best way to go for a large piece of furniture.
• Don't buy spray paint that only appears to be maroon, but is, in reality, stop sign red.
• Don't spray paint in the dark, no matter how excited you are.
• Don't spray paint when it's windy, no matter how excited you are.
• Don't spray paint the inside of a large piece of furniture if you're not prepared to get high.
• When you prop the detached doors up to protect the inside from getting painted, don't pick up the entertainment center to move it. Doors will fall, potentially breaking the glass (we are lucky).
• Don't make the previously listed mistake four (4) times, because that's a big blow to your confidence levels. (We are seriously lucky.)
• Don't pull the little white thing out of the nozzle. It's not a stopper. It's what keeps your spray paint from working like a small hose. 
• Don't let your small-hose spray paint drip. It looks bad even after multiple, multiple layers.
• Don't feel bad when you have to sand away all the drips from your hose-like sprayer.
• Don't be afraid to buy all new colors of spray paint after you admit that stop sign red will never grow on you in your living room.
• Do spray thin layers. Let it dry. Spray again. That's not just a suggestion, even if you think the bottle makes it sound like one.

There were so many other lessons learned...

I hope some of those help any of you out there. 

Or I hope I at least come back and read this post once I've forgotten all the pain that was this project and I'm innocently gearing up for another painting attempt.

But when all is said and (mistakes are) done, our final project isn't too shabby!

Just don't look at it too closely when you come over.

My new DIY definition is 

Don't Initiate Yet.

We got way too excited...

next time: more research, more time prepping,

and more...common sense. :)

But yes, it was definitely meant to be red. I love it!

If you're ever getting depressed from the blogs and pinteresters who remodel every room in their house on a Monday,

in seven simple steps,

just because they finished cooking gourmet meals for the whole week and they're bored...

You can come read about our happy failures.

We're cool with it.