Count Your Brush Strokes Instead of Sheep

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Last night, I had a tough time sleeping. I just couldn’t get tired enough, and always catch a tough-to-fight second wind around 10pm. So, knowing that I wasn’t going to be hitting the hay quite as early as I would have liked, I used my go-to cure for when I can’t sleep: painting something.

I don’t know precisely what it is: the soothing and quiet house, the repetitive nature of painting, or simply knowing that I’m getting something done, but this method seems to work for me each and every time. I paint about half a wall, wrap up the brush (I don’t bother rinsing this late at night, so I use my baggie trick), and climb back into bed. And I’m out like a light.

Just in case you were wondering, this is the wall between my garage  door and laundry room door; basically the far corner of my kitchen. I’m priming the walls to get them ready for their first skim coat (a tip I learned from a contractor a few months ago) to keep the torn paper of the drywall underneath from bubbling when I add my layers of joint compound (for a full skim coat tutorial on how to repair walls after really ragged wallpaper removal, go here). It’s still very rough, but just this priming step alone is going to make the kitchen look even more like it’s not a bunch of torn paper everywhere. And then, maybe, someday (soonish, I hope): I’ll be able to slap that first coat on.