Trina Machacek: Painting the house

Now that it has become abundantly apparent to me that I am the only one left in charge of taking care of my home, I have some decisions to make. Not that I haven’t been part of the decision making experience during all of my years of home ownership. Oh, no, I got to decide when and how each payment was to be made, when to clean and how often to flush stuff into the septic tank. Now, though, everything from the roof to the crawl space is under my power. I don’t like the crawl space. There are things in the crawl space that, well, crawl. I do not relish the idea of me being one of the things that crawl in the crawl space. Nor do I want to meet any of the things that crawl in the crawl space. That is one of the big reasons man was created. Just saying.

It has come to my attention that I might need to slap a new coat of silver streak gray paint on my house come spring. How did I learn this? Little gray paint chips falling from something called the soffit landed on my head as I was trying to keep away from water and icicles falling from the drip edge of the roof while walking to the back door. Interesting that I know what a soffit is, don’t you think? I know what it is but. Yes, a streaking gray “but.” Ha, ha. I just don’t want to paint it or scrape it or caulk it. Droppings are, however, dropping at a pretty good clip this winter, so I’m assuming that means the soffit and the house are screaming at me to pay attention. As I picked gray pieces out of my hair — okay, let the gray jokes fly! Like, how could I tell the difference from the hair and the paint chips as they are nearly the same color? Well, Miss Clairol, Kamala my hair doer and I are just “dye-ing” to tell you. Not. Anyway as I picked the chips from my bangs I started to think about painting and all the job will entail.

As I sit in my winter-surrounded house, I have no problem saying that I can paint my house by myself. Of course, I can also see me doing six backflips down the hall when I go to bed at 9 p.m. I realize, of course, I cannot do either. Oh, I could do the painting of the flat surfaces from the ground up to about 6 feet. The surface that just needs paint and nothing else. I can’t do the trim around the windows very well. I am not a careful enough painter. I am that painter who never has enough rags. My brush starts out all clean and fresh and within six minutes paint covers every inch of my brush from the tips of all the beaver bristles to the hole in the handle.

That actually isn’t such a bad thing when you are painting outside. It’s when you get someone who paints like me painting inside the house that problems arise. I know that from experience. There are still remnants of a green spot on the ceiling of my bedroom where it should be white but for some reason green paint from the can of green trim paint got on my white paint filled brush and, well use your imagination. So, if I do attempt to paint my house, it will only be on the outside.

Oh, who am I kidding? I can’t paint this house. The last time my house was painted, my wonderful family showed up in en masse and during one long day, it wonderfully rained paint in every nook and cranny and the trim, too. Today, though, most of the family lives far away, so I am in charge of this job. That’s exactly how I am going to treat it, as a job. You know, where one person hires another person to do work. In the back of my brain, I hear myself yelling, “If you want something done right, do it yourself!” Then again, I remembered just how long it took me to get all the paint out from under my fingernails the day that green spot was created on the white ceiling in my bedroom. The decision kind of decided itself. I will hire and then supervise.

Whew. As the supervisor, I’ve completed my part of this painting job. My work here is done.

Trina lives in Eureka, Nevada. Find her on Facebook, Instagram or at itybytrina@yahoo.com. Really!