Grrr, Arrgh.
Nov. 8th, 2003 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI wish to register a complaint against the company that made our paint stripper. Their instructions claim that if you spray the stripper on with a little squirt bottle, the paint will just come right off. "Let the stripper do the work," the instructions advise condescendingly.
Right.
There are at least four layers of paint, probably more, on all the wooden surfaces in our bathroom. Everything below the top layer is lead-based. God knows how old the oldest layer is. This paint simply. Does. Not. Want. To. Come. Off.
The paint has defeated one of our pairs of work gloves. It has defeated our first paint scraper. It sits there on the woodwork secure in the knowledge that it's been around a lot longer than either of us, and doesn't have to come off just because we say so.
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wcg came by and advised us to throw out the instructions and paint the stripper on with a brush. That's working a little better. We're still nowhere near getting all of the old paint off. (wcg also helped a little, God bless him, and reassured us that it really is possible to have things go this badly without having fucked anything up. I mean, I guess that was reassuring.
Paint is everywhere. It's in my hair and on my clothes and encrusting the soles of my shoes so badly that Michael took a wire brush to them and still couldn't make them fit to wear outside the painting area. Thick slimy clumps of paint mixed with stripper. Everywhere. We filled two trash bags with foul cruddy newspapers and other detritus, and we're not even done.
Bill estimates that we've got perhaps another six hours of work before we can start painting.
Here's the really cool part: Michael and I have been working on this all afternoon and evening. (He's just finishing up the last of the minimal clean-up we're doing in order to be able to shower.) It's been twenty times harder than either of us anticipated, so most of the day has been a frustrating failure experience for both of us. And yet we haven't even snapped at each other, much less had a fight. Neither one of us has done anything to make the other's day even slightly harder. We've cussed out the work and the entire universe, but we haven't taken it out on each other.
We utterly amaze me.
Right.
There are at least four layers of paint, probably more, on all the wooden surfaces in our bathroom. Everything below the top layer is lead-based. God knows how old the oldest layer is. This paint simply. Does. Not. Want. To. Come. Off.
The paint has defeated one of our pairs of work gloves. It has defeated our first paint scraper. It sits there on the woodwork secure in the knowledge that it's been around a lot longer than either of us, and doesn't have to come off just because we say so.
wcg came by and advised us to throw out the instructions and paint the stripper on with a brush. That's working a little better. We're still nowhere near getting all of the old paint off. (wcg also helped a little, God bless him, and reassured us that it really is possible to have things go this badly without having fucked anything up. I mean, I guess that was reassuring.Paint is everywhere. It's in my hair and on my clothes and encrusting the soles of my shoes so badly that Michael took a wire brush to them and still couldn't make them fit to wear outside the painting area. Thick slimy clumps of paint mixed with stripper. Everywhere. We filled two trash bags with foul cruddy newspapers and other detritus, and we're not even done.
Bill estimates that we've got perhaps another six hours of work before we can start painting.
Here's the really cool part: Michael and I have been working on this all afternoon and evening. (He's just finishing up the last of the minimal clean-up we're doing in order to be able to shower.) It's been twenty times harder than either of us anticipated, so most of the day has been a frustrating failure experience for both of us. And yet we haven't even snapped at each other, much less had a fight. Neither one of us has done anything to make the other's day even slightly harder. We've cussed out the work and the entire universe, but we haven't taken it out on each other.
We utterly amaze me.
