feng_shui_house

So I'm going to be doing inside stuff for most of the day, I expect. I was going to plant a few radishes (they sprouted indoors, but don't seem to want to grow roots) but they'll have to wait.

Time to paint the wall patches. :^)

Although the paint was never used, and never stored outside, and the can looked perfectly good (they use a plastic liner these days), the LID was metal and had rusted inside (to mix the color, they'd opened it at the store- I forgot that).

SO.... various wedges, pliers, can openers, screwdrivers... finally after about 15 minutes released the top, carefully curling it back to reduce the amount of rust flakes falling into the paint.

Another five minutes with damp paper towels trying to catch the rust on the edges.

A minute to dig out a clean empty cat food bin (the big square plastic ones are really nice, with snap on lids for reuse) and my paint strainer (a metal colander) and then I dumped the paint into the bin through the strainer.

A minute to dig out a rubber spatula to scoop out the heavy glop paint under the watery thin paint.

At that point I noticed the rain had diminished to little more than heavy mist, so I went out and transplanted the remaining radishes. STEVE Radish actually had a bit of root! Tony Radish I'm not sure about. Anyway 5 of them are sprouted and a couple others hadn't yet rotted, so I gave them all a chance.

I had cut some small plastic cat litter jugs into rings and set them in the ground around the radishes- this serves 2 purposes- makes me aware they're not weeds when I forget I planted them, and also it makes a little moat so watering gives them an advantage.

If a third radish makes it, I think I should name it Radek Radish. :^)

Ok, radishes are planted & I washed the spatula and strainer and stirred the paint until I was tired, then I came here to type. BACK to paint stirring.

Oh, also, the cantaloupe I transplanted yesterday has perked up! Looks like it might survive. YAY, you grow, melon.

After all that, I started to paint and the paint looks PURE WHITE, not the color on the lid Linen White (which is a sort of cream color), which mentioned the tints added. I'm gonna use it anyway, as a base coat, if nothing else. Maybe the color develops as it dries?

Maybe tomorrow I'll have to fight another can of paint and hope it's the right color.

I salvaged dirt from a failed tomato and filled up a nice big pot & transferred 3 scrawny, crowded zinnia into it & put it in the front. Rainy days are good for transplanting, anyway.

Paint is still looking blue-white. Eh. I'm cold, 58 degrees makes chilly drizzle... Oh, I have some soup to reheat. YAy for soup.

I found a can of Linen White with about 2 inches in the bottom. Plenty for my immediate need. Fortunately, I had covered the paint with a layer of aluminum foil, so it was perfectly good. And it was a lot easier to open the can than the other one. The base coat seemed dry, so I painted the linen white over it. *finally*

I should work on designs now.

Hmm, wonder what I could use the flat white interior paint for? Maybe the insides of the kitchen cabinets?

I looked at the paint and wondered why it was still shiny... I used SEMI GLOSS. I am... just... yeah... well, I've found another can that SHOULD BE linen white, flat, interior paint.

It made me so tired, I just took a 3 hour nap.

Back to the painting again.

I spent 20 minutes opening another can, only to discover that it's CUMULUS, blue white - I guess that's what the other one was. So, now I guess I'll strain it and mix it and add it to the other CUMULUS flat paint bin, and TRY AGAIN. The store printed color labels had faded with age, so it's hard to tell.

Why did I want CUMULUS? It's not ceiling paint.

Combined the Cumulus and opened another can, which sure LOOKS like Linen White Flat Interior. This one only had a little rust around the lid, so only took 10 minutes to open. I have washed tools and my hands so many times today I'm all pruney. Resting up and then will try to paint over the semi-gloss.

Wish me luck!

By the time I got done it was really hard to see. Wet Linen White flat paint looks much the same as dry Linen White flat gloss!

Still, while it was annoying to mess up so many times, maybe it was good that I got the paint transferred to new containers before the rust ruined it.