Four Lessons Learned From Our Thanksgiving Paint-cation
Shortly after moving into our off-white-walled condo, Darrell and I decided to have a Paint-cation. We wanted fun colors and faux finish on our walls without spending tons of money on hiring someone to do it.
As soon as we moved in, I kept talking about how we could – with no problem because I did it 15 years ago – paint and faux finish our small condo ourselves…so we decided to take the Thanksgiving holiday to do it! (Luckily for us, my amazing mom hosted Thanksgiving dinner, so all we needed to do was to show up for a few hours).
Darrell and I spent four 16-hour days prepping and painting. Here’s what I learned from our Thanksgiving Paint-cation.
Throwing my “hat over the wall” first…and THEN figuring out how to go get it actually does work!
John F. Kennedy made famous a story told by Irish writer Frank O’Connor, where he and his friends “would make their way across the countryside, and when they came to an orchard wall that seemed too high and too difficult to permit their voyage to continue, they would take off their hats and toss them over the wall – and then they had no choice but to follow them.”
We got our supplies, painted color samples on the wall, and picked our colors.
Then I tested my faux finish technique… and it sucked!!! Doubt crept in… should I have kept my mouth shut? Should we have hired professionals? Did I get us in over our heads? Were we now papered and taped and all dressed up with no place to faux?
Doubt is a familiar guest in my mental household, and by now it was having a party with friends.
So, fueled by the amount of time and money we already spent on this project – as well being committed to vibrant color on our walls – I gave 
myself a pep talk and set out to watch every Faux-Finish How To Video I could find! I then practiced diligently on large planks of cardboard harvested from a big screen TV box in the dumpster.
After multiple attempts and lots of forgiveness, I mastered a technique that ended up turning our bedroom alive! Purple is my favorite color, and ragging purple glaze over deeper purple base on the bedroom walls was probably the most fun I ever had painting anything!
I committed blindly and without knowing all the particulars…and found a way to get to the result.
When I “play first” and take risks, I make mistakes and doubt shows up. It’s par for the course. The faster I forgive myself (and thank the doubts for sharing), the more fun I have.
Taping is the most boring part of any painting project. I thought it would take me half a day to tape out our place before starting to paint.
On the contrary, it took three times that amount…hours and hours of tedious, never-ending, detailed, and annoying work. It delayed the start of our actual PAINT-cation by 2 days! 
The ever-present self-critic reared its ugly head again in this case as well. It said “You should have known better. You messed up the schedule. How in the world will we get it done on time now?”
I’ve learned to unlearn all that built this inner critic: the childhood pressures to be good, look good, be nice, do things right. So, I set out to forgive, forgive, forgive…and kept my fingers working.
In The Back Forty we “play first”: GO FOR IT without having everything worked out or having all the answers ahead of time. Figure it out as we go. So that’s what I did. And, though it didn’t fit my preconceived pictures or timeline, it all DID get done anyway!
Get out of my head and go play!
Sunday afternoon, I found myself standing in the middle of the living room, with glaze in one hand and a sea sponge in the other, about to start another faux experiment that would shape the whole experience for people walking into our home…when once again I was paralyzed by my frequent visitor – doubt!
“What if I mess it up? I did the bedroom ok, but everyone sees the living room. Should I use the rag here too since I know how to use it better, even though we wanted to sponge for a different effect? Oh my god, what did I get myself into!!!”
Then, just when I could use some outside-voice interruption, Darrell said: “Don’t worry about it, babe. We’re doing this for us. Have fun. Go play with it.”
Something shifted on a dime. The wall became a playground with the glaze and sponge simply toys. I became an artist playing with color, moving along the wall with my sponge to the beat of the music playing. I became an artiste’!
When in doubt, add glitter!
Our rooms are fairly small as we bought the place for the high-rise view of the ocean, not the size. By choice, the colors on our walls are rather deep, which can close down a smaller room even more.
At some point in the middle of our project, a dear friend suggested that we add painter’s sparkle to the walls for added effect and to make the rooms feel lighter. 
Sparkles!!! I had never heard of painter’s sparkle, but you didn’t need to ask me twice. A little research – again thanks to YouTube How Tos – and a trip to the hardware store resulted in Darrell with his roller adding a coat of sparkle on top of the paint in both rooms.
Sparkle on our walls was the best unexpected outcome of our Paint-cation…and I get a twinkle every time I see what our Thanksgiving Paint-cation taught me.
The point of it all: In our second half of life, it is so easy to not take risks, not play first, and stay in our easy, well-worn comfort zones of doubt, second-guessing and need to “look good.” Yet, I find that I get the most juice in life when I DO step out, take risks, and play first ANYWAY.
That’s what makes my second half of life radical and passionate…and results in a radically, beautifully painted condo – with faux and sparkle to show!
