Aww Snap!

A few months ago I received an email from a friendly person who own a Zero VOC paint company. She wanted to know if I wanted to try her paint in exchange for a review.

"Yes", I told her. This was my perfect excuse to finally paint my bedroom.

In my adult life (I'm an adult already. Right?) I have never decorated my bedroom in any way. No paint. No art. Not even a headboard. All of my time, effort and money has gone into the kid's rooms and the common areas of the house. Woe is me....I'm always last.

With the prospect of a fresh coat of paint I spent an entire week choosing the perfect big-girl bed for Hubby and myself. (With my track record, it will be with use well-past our 60th wedding anniversary) Tall and simple. Sturdy and rich. Perfect.

The seemingly friendly paint people offered to give me color suggestions for my upcoming project. "Just send us photos." Simple sounding.

After not hearing from the paint people for months, an email appeared in my inbox. Apparently they had blogged about my disastrous decorating. The photos of my bedroom had been posted for all the world to see! In the style of a sorority horror film, these friendly people took out their red pens and circled the particularly heinous areas of the room!

In the immortal words of Hannah Montana, "Aww Snap!" They got me.

Get With Green Review

A few days ago the friendly guys at Get With Green asked me if I would review a zero VOC paint for their review blog. Since I recently repainted my bathroom a shade of friendly yellow, this was an easy one for me.

Get With Green is a great resource if you are planning on remodeling or building a home. Please take a minute to check out the blog and as a bonus you can see photographic evidence of just how messy of a painter I really am. Thank goodness that blogging doesn't require fine motor skills.

And The After

A few readers said they were interested in seeing the after of my guest bathroom redo. Well here it is...

I used a zero VOC paint. Reused old paint brushes. Added a live plant. Freecycled the old mirror.

Now I am trying to sell my old light fixture and drawer pulls on Craig's List. The problem with the Hartford Craig's List is that it is really underused. If the light and pulls sit for too long, then I will eventually donate them.

Overall, this redo was a good balance between my yuppie and granola self.

If you are interested in reading about how this supposedly easy bathroom makeover was anything but, you can check out the original post here. How come home improvement projects are never as easy as Ty Pennington leads us to believe?

The easy home improvement project

I had this nice little Saturday morning plan to spruce up my home. I was going to paint the bathroom a nice shade of yellow using zero VOC (volatile organic compounds) paint and change the mirror.

Pop goes my bubble.

My house was built two years ago. The entire interior of the house was painted with one thin coat of flat paint. I'm guessing that my builder had forgotten what it is like to live with kids. Every surface looked dirty and chipped almost immediately. Fast forward two years and the guest bathroom looks absolutely gross.

So I did my research online. I knew that I wanted to go with a zero VOC paint. The EPA has stated that indoor air quality is three times more polluted than indoor air. Conventional paints give off harmful fumes while they are wet and then they continue to release harmful toxins when dry. Conventional paint has been linked to a host of lung problems including asthma. No thank you.

I settled on Sherwin Williams Zero VOC paint because they have a location close to me. The friendly paint store man even carried the paint out to my car. (I did look rather cute that day) Friendly Yellow is a mellow shade of yellow. Neutral with just enough yellow.




The first step was to remove the plain mirror. Only it wasn't just screwed to the wall. I was glued to the wall too. Pulling the mirror off the wall was more about pulling off the wall. In thick strips.

Now we are $30 more dollars into the project and anticipate 48 hours of applying, sanding and drying mud before painting.

Does anyone else watch those DIY house flipping and home improvement shows just to get a good laugh? That karma is now biting me in the butt. Feel free to laugh at my disaster...but watch out. Karma may be waiting for you too.