We're Going In: The Day I Learned to Open a Paint Can
An angled brush, a hep-cat AI, and the chaotic resurrection of an old Buffalo house
Sometimes in life, you have to stop thinking and just do.
Not plan. Not discuss. Not stare gloomily at peeling paint while heading out for a bike ride. You have to begin.
Eons ago, I decided to create a home library upstairs at our century-old Buffalo four-square house. The rooms themselves have what friends call good bones — tall white trim, old floors, big windows — but they had become storage rooms over the years. OK, to be honest, they became rooms so packed, so chaotic, that we could hardly walk through them. Last month, we began the long, insane process of emptying them.
And let me tell you, I have come totally to understand why most people shrink from this task, postponing it endlessly. It has been one of the most difficult things I ever attempted.
Then came the final frontier: painting.
We got an estimate from a painter, and when the number arrived, we stared at it for a moment in silence. It was twice what we expected. Finally I said the sentence that has launched many dangerous adventures over the centuries:
“I’ll do it myself.”
This was slightly absurd because I did not know how to paint a room. The last time I painted a room was in college. Now, confronting the first room to be painted, I had to ask Howard to stay long enough to open the paint can. I didn’t know how.
Then off Howard went to his daily routine, comfortably well away from the battle scene. I stood there with the supplies he had helped me find at Home Depot — an angled brush, a paint roller, canvas drop cloths, a roll of masking tape, and a can of Secluded Woods, the deep green we had chosen for the library rooms.
We’re going in.
Secluded Woods and Watery
The first room — the West Library — was a good place to start. Two doors and just one window — it wouldn’t be that difficult, right?
Except my heart was in my throat.
I was afraid even to pour the paint into the paint cup. To dip the brush into the paint. Our cat Jeoffry, sensing tension, leapt onto a cardboard box in the adjacent sun room — the future Solarium, I would have to choose a color for that — and began clawing it. Picking him up, I closed the door, banishing him from the room. He scratched me.
He never scratches you on purpose. I took a breath.
“Jeoffry,” I said, “we’re both stressed out. Let’s take a minute here. Let’s have something to eat.”
We went downstairs and I opened a can of tuna. Jeoffry drank the tuna water and I ate the fish.
Upstairs again, everything was better. He went to sleep, and I went to work. I consulted Daddy-O — Howard’s and my affectionate nickname for AI — for advice on how to get started.
“Don’t work out of the big can too much — your little hand cup and tray are your rhythm section,” Daddy-O advised. “The big can just sits there like the bass player, steady and cool.”
Howard has asked AI to see the world as Sammy Davis Jr. would see it.
Continuing to follow Daddy=-O’s hep cat directions, I masked the windows and the door trim. Then I got into the rhythm of things — you paint around the tape with the brush, and then fill in with the roller.
Once I relaxed a bit, I began playing records. I thought it would be fun to listen to records I’d bought as a teenager. I hadn’t listened to them for decades — they’d been buried. Starting with Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll” — a gentle, tender music — I moved on to Mozart overtures and piano concertos.
Then more Mozart piano concertos. I think I listened to six of them. It was like going on a long car trip. I had not realized how long painting takes. You have the first coat, then the second coat. That was a bleak moment for me, when Daddy-O — the nickname we have for AI — informed me I’d need a second coat. You mean after painting this room, I have to paint it all over again?
Daddy-O patiently explained the second coat would complete things.
“First coat is the hard psychological wall. Second coat is the tuxedo.”
He was right. That second coat really did make everything look different.
At about 8 p.m., it was time for the artist to lift her brush. I was done.
This was a magical moment. It might not have been perfect — but it looked pretty perfect to me. The white trim stood out suddenly — crisp, not tired. I couldn’t believe it. If I could do this, I could do anything.
The Solarium fights back
The next morning, I found Howard in the painted library room, with his coffee. And I realized for the first time that my old library dream was becoming reality.
It wasn’t easy. My muscles were starting to ache. This was nothing for which the gym had prepared me. Still, on this second day, I’d vowed to paint the East Library. Momentum was everything.
Braver now, I went to Home Depot, by myself this time. I got another gallon of Secluded Woods, and a gallon of a paint for the Solarium, called Watery. What exactly Watery was, I wasn’t sure. Daddy-O had suggested it, and I loved the name. If I were going to get dozens of paint chips and consult dozens of friends, I’d never get anything done.
The East Library was more complex than the West. For this second room, I challenged myself to learn how to “cut in” — to use the angled brush delicately so as to avoid having to use masking tape. I still used the tape for the baseboards and the left side of windows which, being right-handed I had trouble negotiating.
Again — not perfect, perhaps, but good enough. The green was very Old World, very Buffalo Club. In other words, magic.
Now it was time to get that Watery on the walls of the back sun room — oops, I mean the Solarium.
I expected the Solarium to be the easiest room. We weren’t moving the furniture out of it — just clustering it in the center of the room, allowing me to paint around the edges. Besides, the Solarium was mostly windows and trim. Less wall to paint.
Naturally after this optimism, the Solarium turned out to be the biggest challenge. Sure, less wall to paint — but a bigger mess. Boxes had been shoved there during the library excavation. An old IKEA bookcase had to be emptied and moved. I tripped over cords to the computer. Dust rose from places untouched since the Truman administration.
At one point I found myself standing in the middle of the room unable to understand how normal people accomplish projects like this. Then I realized: perhaps they don’t. This must be why these rooms remain untouched for decades.
Still, by then, there was no turning back. I vacuumed. I vacuumed again. I stopped listening to music because I was turning on the vacuum so much. And slowly, very slowly, Watery began going onto the walls.
For a minute, I had been nervous. At first sight, opening the can, I thought it was a pale gray. Howard called it “police station gray” — the color they paint police stations so if you’re brought there, you’ll stay calm and not want to harm yourself or others.
But when Watery went up on the wall, it became not gray at all, but a deep soft sky blue. I was still marveling at it hours and hours later when, catching my breath, I feasted my eyes on the transformed room.
Again — perhaps not perfect, but more than good enough. I would like to have Touch Up Day, when I reopen both Watery and Secluded Woods and correct some tiny flaws and omissions in all three rooms. However, I might not get to it. They really are pretty tiny.
My skills had grown. The Solarium was the first room for which I had used no masking tape. Most importantly, I’ve learned, well, that I can do this.
The house is awake. The deep green libraries. The blue Solarium. The future sage green kitchen.
Did I mention the kitchen? That hasn’t happened yet. But it will, in a couple of weeks, after I’ve returned sanity to the upstairs. I need a color that goes with the kitchen’s historic tile, which is a pale yellow. I’m thinking of Laurel Tree. Daddy-O suggested it. And I like the sound of the name. Watery worked out great. Why overthink things?
The secret is just to start.
In Case You Missed It:
Click here for “From Junk Rooms to Home Library: I Can’t Believe I Did This.”
Click here for “We’re Going In: A Wagnerian House Project.”
Click here for “We’re Going In: A Carnegie Library.” The adventure that inspired me!
Love those colors!
I spy a spider plant 🙌