What’s A Chore That You Started That You Didn’t Realize How Big It Would Be Till You Were Doing It?

Mamapolo's story reminded me of the nightmare of painting the kitchen cupboards at my foreclosure home in Lansing, Michigan.

I went to Lowes and asked the girls in the paint department for a paint that would REALLY cover well...in one or two coats, because I was painting really old kitchen cabinets that were the color of dark chocolate fudge. So they sold me Valspar. Little did I know that Valspar is the worst, lousiest paint on the planet.

I cleaned everything I was going to paint with a good degreaser.

I covered the outsides of all the cabinets, and the insides, too, with primer. Took the doors off the hinges, painted the doors separately. I ended up doing two coats of primer, because the primer should have covered more, and it didn't.

I started painting with the Valspar, which is so thin that it drips off the brush even if you try to get some off first on the edge of the paint can. All I remember is thin and drippy...thin and drippy.

It took me TEN coats of that crap paint to cover the kitchen cabinets in white with no dark chocolate fudge showing through. TEN. On top of two coats of primer.

THEN, I could see that the paint would need a protective coating, so I went out and bought a quart of clear Polyurethane, and coated it all with a final coat of poly.

In between each coat I had to wait for all the paint to dry. The only way I got through it was with McDonald's Sweet Tea. I think it took me about 2 1/2 weeks.

If I had purchased Behr paint at Home Depot, I could have been finished in three or four days.