“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .”
I don’t love clutter. I do love music, and teach classes here and there. Teaching music classes requires a few little tools, and for a long time, mine have been taking up space on a couple of tables in my music room. Although I’ve kept things “orderly” the fact that I could see EVERYTHING every time I walked into the room, caused me a bit of anxiety.
So . . . a year or two ago, I found a black cabinet at a thrift store nearby. Something like this, only mine was a bit more beat up. The top was warped from water damage, and there were scratches in lots of places. Being a non-independently wealthy person, I’m always looking for good deals, and even though the cabinet wasn’t “move in ready”, I knew I could do something with it, and it just might solve my music-room clutter problem.
Enter paint sprayer number one: I’ve had my cabinet for a long time, and have had great intentions of refinishing it, but things always seemed to get in the way. Part of the problem, was that this wasn’t just my project. Things tend to get more difficult to manage when you involve more people. My mom also had some furniture she wanted to refinish, and we decided to join up and have a painting party together. A year ago, my mom bought a pretty heavy duty paint sprayer. Said paint sprayer was highly recommended by my General Contractor uncle, who said it was super powerful and would be able to spray anything. I think his exact words were something like, “It’s powerful enough it could spray snot!” Paint sprayer purchased . . . we were one step closer to getting our projects done!
Fast forward a bit (twelve months?), and we finally settled on a day to get to work. In preparation, my dad prepped the garage and we set up the furniture that we planned to work on. We didn’t want to sand everything down, but painting over a dark color, like black, would take a long time. Solution? Prime the furniture with the super powerful paint sprayer instead! It sounds like such a Small and Simple idea, right? The day of painting arrived. The sun was shining, everything was set up, and we had our tools ready to go. The paint sprayer had come out of it’s twelve-month storage and was put together and ready to go, too. We even took the time to watch some videos on YouTube to show us how to use this amazing contraption. Full of confidence, we opened our can of primer and got to work. But it didn’t work. We double checked the user manual, watched some more videos, and got back at it. It still didn’t work. We looked up troubleshooting ideas, implemented them, and finally got the sprayer to start sucking up the primer. However, it just dribbled out of the spray gun. There was NO pressure at all. So much for spraying snot? We gave it a good effort, but after four hours of frustration, we called it a day. (Side note: When my dad got home and got to work cleaning out the sprayer, he said everything inside was all gummed up. Turns out buying a sprayer, then letting it sit for a year, isn’t the best plan of action. This paint sprayer is currently cleaned out and ready for something big in the future).
After a full day of frustration, you might think we’d give up, but no. We’re nothing if not tenacious when it comes to finishing projects we’ve started. On the recommendation of a friend, we hopped on amazon.com and purchased a different sprayer, hoping things would go better next time. Thanks to prime shipping, the new sprayer arrived in just a couple of days, and we were back to work. I can’t even tell you how amazing it was to put paint in the bottle, plug it in, pull the trigger and see the beautiful, white, cloud of fresh primer come pouring out! It was a modern day miracle! Honestly, I almost cried with pure joy. You guys, this sprayer was much smaller, had fewer bells and whistles, but it worked like a champ for our projects. We had my little cabinet, two dressers, and a queen size bed frame all primed in an hour. What!?! So much different than our earlier experience!
Our miracle machine was the HomeRight Super Finish Max Extra. It was advertised as the best paint sprayer for painting projects, and it truly lived up to this claim. In the same amount of time it took for us to get frustrated and give up on day one, we were able to prime everything, clean out the sprayer, and finish up everything that needed white paint. It was amazing!
The next day we were at it again, and were able to finish up both of the other colors we had planned to use. We even had time to let things dry enough that I could load my cabinet up and take it home. It’s so pretty! and I’m so happy with it! The paint went on super smoothly, and was almost effortless. While it cost a third of what the other sprayer cost, and probably didn’t have as much power in the long run, it was definitely the right tool for this project.
Have you ever noticed how the world around is always pushing for bigger and better? It seems that the more something is able to do, the better it is. Whether that be a person, an advertisement, a home, a toy, a tool, or even a paint sprayer. It’s so easy to get distracted by all the loud voices telling us what they think is best. What they think is best, though, isn’t always what we need. The first paint sprayer we tried is an amazing tool, but it was too much for what we planned to do. It turns out, something smaller and simpler turned out to be our best option. Think about that the next time you feel overwhelmed by all the things you feel you need in order to be successful in whatever you’re trying to do. The biggest and best just might be too much. Never discount the small and simple. Even small things can make a BIG difference!
Speaking of a big difference . . . here’s how my cabinet looks in my music room. No more visible clutter, and I’m a happy girl!
