Back From Vacation

Mr. Happy and I are finally back from vacationing in our own home. On Jun 27th, we moved out of our room so that we could finally say goodbye to this:

...the 80-year old wallpaper. It's had a good life, and while we really liked it and know that wallpaper is coming back into fashion, it was old and worn and past its prime. It wasn't until I looked at the picture that I realized:

1. Whoa! That's some busy wallpaper.
2. Our room is a mess.
3. Huhn, that's a lot of wall space above our bed. I should get some art or something to hang there.

I moved as many things out of our bedroom as possible and picked up some paint for the project. We decided to paint our room the same colour white as in the craft room. When Mr. Happy and I first got married, we lived in his parents house while they were overseas. Our bedroom there was white and I remembered how bright and cheery it was in the morning.

As you may recall, when I picked out this colour the first time, I had a bit of a problem getting the paint mixed properly. I wrote about it here.

When I went in to get the paint for our bedroom, the young man told me that he had heard about the initial problem. He then took the cans of paint and mixed them for me. I wasn't paying attention to what he was doing as I had other things to pick up. It's Schmamadian Schmire, you can always find things to pick up. Apparently, I should have watched him like a hawk watching field mice having a family reunion picnic in an open field:

Lesson learned: When you pick out a paint colour at the store, INSIST that they look up the colour in their computer. Do not, under any circumstances, encourage them to SCAN the colour. The scanner system seems to be unreliable and produced PINK paint not once, but twice, even though the guy at the counter assured me that it had been "re-calibrated".

When I realized that there was a problem, I went back for more paint. This time, I was armed with a PICTURE of the paint can with the proper formula on the top. Luckily, I had a new haircut, so the guys at the paint counter didn't recognize me. I think I may be getting a bad reputation at Schmamadian Schmire.

I stood at the counter and when the guy started to scan the chip, I asked him to look up the formula in the computer. Then I asked him to show me the formula so that we could compare it with the formula on the can I had at home. It wasn't the same, so I asked him to mix it with the formula I provided from the original paint can. He was very nice about it and a bit shocked at the difference.

While getting the right colour paint has been a pain in the arse, I am really happy with the results. I'm also quite happy with the Debbie Travis paint. I'm just not happy with clerks taking the "easy" way to do things. Scanning the chip rather than looking up the colour seems to be "easier". I've worked in retail from the age of 15, so I know that the "easy" way usually ends up costing more in the long run, either for myself, or the customer.

Anyhoo, here's the finished product:

See?

Bright and Cheery. Crisp and clean.