So, I did it. I pulled the trigger. I painted my bedroom wall black, and I think I’m kind of in love. I’ve been swooning over black for awhile now, and after discussing this idea with a few friends whose opinions I trust, I decided to go for it. I ordered up some paint a few weeks ago from Farrow & Ball and waited. Fast forward to Thursday: a shit ton of paint shows up on my doorstep. By Thursday night there was paint on my walls.

The plan was to paint the far wall a color called “Railings” — a deep black with a hint of blue. The other walls would be “Winborne White” and the trim would be “All-White”. Doing this with kids in the house is a crazy juggling act. First off, I’m a lazy painter. By that I mean I just pull out a brush and I go to town. I don’t prep, I don’t use drop cloths, I don’t change my clothes, I don’t use tape and I don’t prepare or get the necessary supplies and tools. Now you know my dirty secret. It shouldn’t be a surprise to you that half of my room is still unpainted.

I would hate to have to move all my furniture into the middle of the room and work around it. I just can’t deal with that chaos, so I work in sections. I started with the wall behind my bed; first the trim, then primer on the walls, then two coats of paint and lastly I cut in around the molding. It might take longer painting wall by wall but it’s much better this way because if a kid decides that they need me to help them go pee and then need a glass of milk and then need a new show on Netflix…well, then I can drop what I’m doing and get back to it later. Even if later is days from now. My room won’t exist as a total disaster, just a partial disaster during that period. You see where I’m going with this. Anyway, more on that later. For now, what do you think?

The wall that I painted black is paneling. Not cool paneling either — if paneling can even be cool — it’s ugly paneling. I’m afraid to take it down because I’m pretty sure it’s hiding dark, dark secrets. My suspicion is that corner of the room used to exist as the 2nd closet and then someone decided to remove it in order to make the room bigger. I would dare to say that the wall behind the paneling is in rough shape. Where am I going with this? What I’m trying to say is that the black paint makes the paneling better. At first glance it’s not apparent that it’s paneling, and when you notice it, the paneling actually looks kind of nice, not scary, gross or old.

As you can see, I stopped right up there above the door. I haven’t even finished the hard part. I still have to paint both doors and the window frames. Eesh, and that’s not even as fun or satisfying. Anyone wanna place bets on how long this will take me?

So remember how I mentioned I work in fits and starts? Well, in order to stop and start at the drop of a hat, I refrigerate my brushes and rollers. I put them in a bag, label them (if I have more than one), and then throw them in the basement fridge. I can’t be the only one that does this. It makes jumping back in real easy.

Be careful though. There is something that exists called the “Roller Graveyard”, and it lives at my house. Do ya think I have an aversion to cleaning out rollers? I told you, LA-ZY painter.