On patience and painting, Part 2

Last week I wrote about my daughter and I practicing patience while repainting her bedroom. One of the things I mentioned was that the furniture scheduled for mid-July would arrive on Monday, which it did:

Fortunately, we were able to get the painting finished as well as some much needed purging and reorganizing before the furniture was delivered. We’ve spent the remainder of the week putting things away and putting the finishing touches on the decorating. On Tuesday, while my son was at his weekly horn lesson, my daughter and I went on a quick but fruitful shopping excursion. I haven’t been to Pier One is ages, but I knew they had paper lanterns and was hoping they would have them in colors that matched the new room decor. We found those as well as three canvases, one of which coordinates with the room so well that I chocked it up to decorating serendipity:

As a matter of fact, the room was completely finished save for one thing. That big green rectangle on the wall in the first picture? This is what that rectangle used to look like:

If it were up to her, she probably wouldn’t mind painting over that rectangle and be done with it. But I really liked her name over her bed. I just needed to make some that would match her new room. I figured I would do what I did the first time: find some scrapbook paper that coordinated with the bedding. But after going to three craft stores, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I opted for my second choice: hand painting the letters.

Which is a whole other lesson in painting and patience. The letters come painted white. But I never leave anything white if I can help it. So the first step in the project was sanding followed by a very unattractive base coat:

Followed by more sanding and a slightly less unattractive second coat:

And (you guessed it) more sanding then a third coat:

I suppose I could have left the letters purple and called it a day, but I can’t very well call myself an artist and have boring purple letters hanging in my house, now can I?


Then of course you have to put a sealer on them…

Don't worry. It dries clear.

Because I couldn’t stand to have a room almost finished. Especially when the one thing left unfinished was the first thing you saw when you walked into the room:

So, that’s why I’ve been a bit scarce the past few days around the interwebs. I’ve been practicing painting and patience. And hey, just to throw in another “P” word, I’ll say perseverance, too.

And now I can truly say the project is finished:

Except for 2 pictures I still need to hang, but I’ll get to those tomorrow…

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