Bargain shopping at OSH

Let me start by saying that I LOVE the idea of the mis-mix discount bin at hardware stores. Random colors that were mis-formulated end up here instead of going to waste. Some of the colors are not anything I'd be able to use, and there is definitely not critical mass for a big project. I've never actually put it to use, but it is an idea touted by a lot of popular budget design shows. Quarts are $1, gallons are $4! Wheeeee! It's definitely a good price for some fun.

I went to OSH late Saturday night to pick up some supplies, and also had the notion that I'm going to need to paint the bathroom once I finish patching the wall over the tub. The mis-mix bin is right outside the front door, and it was a treasure trove this time given my needs.

I found two quarts of semi-gloss in nice benign white. They are not the same color, but I figure they are close enough to offer decent coverage of the bathroom for my purposes. One quart is probably not enough, but since this is a short-term upgrade, I'm OK with a little mix and mingle of two pretty close colors. Whatever the case, it'll be an improvement over what's there! One can is even the special "kitchen and bath, mildew-resistant" formula. Yay!

As I was digging through, I came across a gallon of flat interior paint in a nice, happy pink. Again, I'm not a fan of flat paint, nor was I looking for pink paint, but I thought that for a short term upgrade of the little bedroom which will be my crash pad for the next few months, a $4 can of paint is right up my alley. It would make it cleaner looking, cheery and would also seal in the mildew that is on the walls in a few places as a result of lack of ventilation. The current paint job is so old, it's not at all able to withstand scrubbing to remove the mildew.

So I bought a full-priced can of primer since I'm sure the walls are going to suck in whatever I put on them, some rollers and then made my way to the wall patching supply area where I found a roll of adhesive mesh to use with some drywall compound to patch up cracks and holes that spackling can't handle (i.e. the bathroom wall).

Happy with my plan, I went home to prep the little bedroom for painting. I started out saying I was just going to fill the biger holes and ignore the little thumbtack holes. However, there were SO many that I spackled many of the larger clusters in one big swipe. There were far too many, so I eventually gave up, telling myself this is not a long-term improvement. This is really to make the place clean for occasional use and as a small perk me up until the big perk me up stuff starts happening.

Mom and I set about to painting on Sunday, and as predicted, the walls sucked in the primer like a dry sponge sucks up spilled water. Even the primer white was an improvement over what was there before! I hope the primer does it's job and the paint goes on evenly. I have only enough paint for one coat, and may even water it down to make it more of a wash so that it goes further. I won't get down to the business of painting until next weekend, but here is a test patch of the color I'll be using:

It's much pinker on the wall than the little dot on the top of the can seemed. But, for $4, I'm not too concerned...