So, three quarters of the way through painting the dining room, I have run out of paint. 

It was to be expected, really. I let the salesman at Sherwin Williams convince me, against my better judgement, that I would only need one coat of primer and one coat of paint. Or, maybe, “one and a half coats”. 

Actually, he was probably right. The paint went on quite well and under normal circumstances one or one and a half coats would have been adequate. But, leaving aside totally the fact that I have no idea how one applies a “half coat”, both he and I failed to take a few things into consideration:

1. Despite The Daddy’s promise to keep the kids out of my way so that I could paint in peace, I completed much of the first coat in record time while the baby played at my feet with a police car… and a balloon.  I was hurrying because I was nervous that one of the three would rub up against the wall I had just painted perfectly and it would then need a second coat. Which is, in fact, what happened. 

2. Generally, if you go to the hardware store and buy roller covers which then turn out to be not quite up to the job, you make another quick run out to the hardware store for the correct roller covers. Unless, of course, you have three children who are all over the place with sadness that you are paying attention to a wall and not to them, and an upcoming birthday party which needs to use the space, making it a necessity that you complete the painting in one weekend without dragging three whining children to the store in the middle of it. Then you tend to cut your losses and forge ahead with the tools you have. Which means that you end up having to apply that second coat. 

3. Perfectionism. The whole reason I was painting the room myself in the first place, rather than paying someone else to make the problem go away. Also the reason why my second coat went on as thick as my first coat - I wouldn’t want to miss any bits - meaning that the can was very quickly empty. 

4. And then the roller broke, and I had to paint half the last wall with a brush. There’s a reason why people use rollers and not brushes. 

Still, all is not lost. I am hoping that, given that the unpainted wall is a wall of windows, if there is any color discrepancy with the new batch of paint the difference in light will disguise it. I am leaving that job for another weekend.

In the meantime, I am very happy with what has been achieved. The color turned out greener than expected, almost psychedelic (Fun Yellow is not a color to be trifled with), but a few picture frames and some furniture will soon tone it down. Anyway, compared to the previous color - a shade of diarrhea which looked elegant with someone else’s furniture but just depressing with ours - anything would be an improvement. I consider it a job well done.