DIY LESSON LEARNED

I would consider myself a somewhat experienced DIYer.  

When we bought our first home, we tackled many of the projects ourselves.  

Most of them turned out okay.  A few were complete failures and a handful were very successful.  

When we bought "The Money Pit", we knew this would most likely be our "forever" house and we wanted to leave most of the renovations to the professionals.  

Since the major work on our home is complete, 

I have decided in the past year or so to take on a few projects myself.  

My husband's DIY days are over.  He would much rather get out his checkbook than his hammer.  

Me, I'm a bit on the frugal side and if the project involves skills I think I possess, I forge ahead.

Here's the problem, I think I possess a few more skills than I actually do.  

Take for instance, the skill of painting.  It appears easy enough and I have done 

it on numerous occasions.  Each and every time I delve into a painting project, 

I swear it will be my last.  Next time, I will make note of this!  I am not a painter.  

I can stencil a wall like nobody's business, 

but painting an entire room (or closet wall with stripes) is not my cup of tea.  

There, I admit it, I suck at painting.  How's that for authentic?

For my most recent DIY project, the closet makeover, I made several major mistakes. 

Mistake #1:  Ruining perfectly good clothes due to my lack of patience

I get so eager to start projects, I often don't take the time to properly prepare. 

This time, I didn't even prepare myself. 

I'll spare you the picture of my ruined workout pants. 

Mistake #2:  Not paying enough attention in third grade math class

To get started on painting the stripes, 

I calculated how wide I wanted my stripes 

and how far apart I wanted them to be.  

I made a mark every 8", drew a level line, applied my tape and started painting.  

It really is simple math.  If you want your stripes to each be 8" wide, 

then you can't add a strip of 1" wide masking tape every 8 inches down the wall.  

You will end up with uneven stripes, TRUST ME!

Case in point....

Mistake #3:  Being Lazy

My husband was out of town when I started this project and I couldn't move the dresser out of the closet by myself.  So what's a girl to do, a lazy girl that is?  Why not just paint half the wall?  

I'll tell you why, because some day you may decide to permanently move that dresser

out of the closet and then you will be left with a half painted, ridiculous looking wall. 

I ended up painting the entire wall again and starting from scratch with the stripes. 

Before I began round two, the dresser was moved out of the closet.

Mistake #4:  Being Cheap

You may remember from this post, my disdain for sanding and priming.  

I thought it would be cheap financially responsible to make my own chalk paint. 

I also thought it would be a good way for me to skip the ever dreaded steps of sanding and priming. 

I was planning on using Carmel's instructions for making the chalk paint, 

but since I'm lazy AND cheap, I used the only ingredient I had on hand, un-sanded grout.  

I mixed it with regular latex paint, added a little water and went to town on the dresser. 

The paint was thick, clumpy and hard to work with.  I'm sure it had something to do with my formula, 

but after two coats and a light sanding, I felt completely defeated.  I was ready to scrap the whole project, move the dresser to the furniture graveyard (aka the garage) and make a made dash to Ikea to purchase a new white dresser.  After my husband talked me down from the ledge, I came to my senses, sanded and scraped the heck out of the dresser and started from scratch.  

When I realized we didn't have any primer in the house, 

I actually contemplated making my own primer.  

I even did a search on-line for instructions.  My husband was watching in horror as this was happening.  Fortunately, he came to the rescue, made a quick trip to Lowe's and returned with a quart of primer, before I could start mixing concoctions.  See, he's not lazy or cheap!  

Yes, I sanded AND primed and then I used regular latex paint to finish it off. 

 I could have saved myself about six hours of time, my sanity 

and a nice pair of work out pants had I done things right from the beginning.  

But hey, you live and you learn.  The lesson I learned, leave these types of projects to the professionals.

I'll leave you with this image since it all turned out nice and pretty.

How about you, made any major DIY blunders?