A mile in my shoes

It occurs to me that if a given task seems just short of impossible to complete, that there must be an easier previously overlooked way to do it. And so it was that I found myself wandering around Menards today in search of an alternative to the texture paint that I’ve been struggling with over the past couple weeks, well months actually.

I was considering the purchase of a hopper/air gun set up when I noticed a section of textured rollers and a different brand of texture stuff. I figured it couldn’t be any worse than the stuff I’d been using, so I bought a roller and a medium size bucket of new texture stuff. Consistency-wise this stuff is suspiciously similar to drywall mud, but different in that it costs more than drywall mud. Ahh, yeah.

The good news is that this new stuff is a lot easier to use and I love it! However, the day wasn’t a complete success. This of course is nothing new; in my world even the smallest victory is met with a series of set-backs. To illustrate this, I offer you a description of events surrounding the otherwise joyful experience I had with the new texture stuff.

Seeing as the old texture stuff was so messy to work with and that I’d pretty much ruined a pair of running shoes in the process, I figured I’d better wear shoes that I didn’t mind wrecking. I found an old pair of cross-trainers under the bed and put them on. Now, while I don’t really remember when or where I wore these shoes last, judging by the amount of mud stuck in the treads, I’d guess I was slopping pigs or digging a grave. At any rate, I didn’t actually notice the mud until it became dislodged. This happened as I walked, with each and every step releasing chunks of dried mud. That said, I’m surprised at how far I walked and how much mud was distributed before I noticed. Yeah. Not to worry though, since the texture project is going on in the basement, I figured I’d clean up the upstairs mess later and head downstairs where the cleanliness factor is considerably more flexible. Besides which, I thought that most of the mud had already come off at that point.

However, when I finished the wall I was working on, I looked down and saw that the basement floor was also covered with mud. So, not wanting to drag more mud upstairs, I opted to leave the muddy shoes downstairs in the laundry room where I retrieved the previously bespeckled (nearly ruined) shoes that I’d been wearing while using the old texture paint. These shoes were caked with layers of texture paint and frankly look ridiculous, but the paint was dry, and I wasn’t going anywhere so I figured they’d be fine to wear around the house.

Meanwhile, since it was Wednesday and garbage day is Thursday, I had to to gather, sort and separate the trash from cans around the house. It had been raining on and off all day, so when I brought the trash out to the curb, my shoes got wet. Not a big deal, except that the water seemed to reactivate the dried texture paint on the shoes I was wearing. I noticed this after noticed white footprints my maroon rug. Wonderful.

At that point I thought I might be able to get the white marks off of the maroon rug if I used a brush. Unfortunately, the only brush I had on hand was the brush that came with the cat. And sure enough, when I used it, some of the white stuff came off! Unfortunately it also left behind a significant amount of black cat hair.

So while the new texture stuff was a definite hit, I now I have clumps of dried mud, white texture paint and last but not least, cat hair spread around the floors throughout the house.

Overall, I’d consider it a successful day...