Blue hand group

I read somewhere that to get paint off your hands you should use vegetable oil. I think it is just a way to reduce the pain as you try to scrape the paint-infused top layer of skin off your hands with your fingernails.

I just finished my bathroom painting project! All that is left is hammering the top of the can and taking off the tape. I'm taking a brief break because now that my hands are only spattered, rather than covered, with blue, I want to feel clean for a few minutes before I walk into the bathroom and find paint all over myself again.

What is it with this color: Benjamin Moore's Slate Teal? It's a magnificent color, the color I dreamed of painting this bathroom even before I bought this place. I finally found it. And it caused me to lose my mind or something. I am pretty experienced at painting my walls now: I've painted 24, by my count, since I moved in (some of those are the same walls twice). Seven of those are other bathrooms' walls. I always use crazy saturated colors, so one in the blue realm should not have been a stretch for me.

But this color is somehow out of control. On this project, which has taken me a surprising three days (no other room has taken more than one), I have been klutzier than usual. It's like this paint has put me off balance. I've kicked over the can, tripped over the roller, whacked the brush against a door. At the same time, I spent a lot of time standing balanced on the sink painting behind the light fixture (which was swathed in plastic wrap) -- with the voice of my grandmother in my head screaming that I was going to fall and kill myself.

I didn't even paint the room in a methodical way, which is one reason it took extra days. I would get irritated at how the paint was not covering a wall well (two coats required), so I'd move to a different part of the room; I'd get tired of standing on a stepladder so move to a different section.... It was so haphazard, I am pretty sure I have ended up doing three coats.

Oh, look, teal paint on my forearm. I am sure it will transfer to this white MacBook any second.

The bathroom is breathtaking.