Don't do what Donnie Don't does- Painting

One of my favorite things about reading other people's blogs is learning new things. I love it when someone describes a project that they've been working on, either giving helpful tips for doing it or just inspiring me to try new things myself. When I started this blog, it was with that in mind. I try an awful lot of things around my house. Some of my projects work, many do not.

So with that in mind (and having just royally screwed up my latest project), I have decided to include a new section in my labels, "Don't do what Donnie Don't does". These are things that I suggest you do not do. (If you don't get the reference- it's from the Simpsons.)

The first bit of advice I would like to humbly offer is the following. After you paint your bathroom, DO NOT shower in there for quite awhile. I'm not sure exactly how long you need to wait, but I can tell you it's longer than 24 hours. I know this because 24 hours after I finished mine, I was overcome by the beauty of it. I simply *had* to hang up the shower curtain and take it for a test drive. As I washed my hair, I looked up and noticed tiny little bubbles forming all over the surface of the wall. Yep, in several spots, the paint had actually bubbled away from the wall. I'm assuming this was from the moisture from my somewhat steamy shower, since the bubbles were not there before. Jeff did read the back of the can of paint for me after I threw open the bathroom door mid-shower in an attempt to remove moisture. He jokingly said, "Not for use in bathrooms." Ha ha ha. Isn't he funny? Well, actually he is. But the point is, the can said nothing about how long you need to wait before exposing the wall to atmospheric moisture.

Originally, I had planned that my next post here would include a beautiful picture of my finished bathroom, complete with the story of how I ended up with the exact color that I wanted, but fate sent me bubbled paint. Maybe I'll get to the more inspiring post later, but for now, the moral of the story is this... after you paint a room and you think you've waited long enough to use it, wait longer.

Added Note- I actually don't think it was that I didn't wait long enough. All the paint experts I asked believed that it is because I didn't do a good enough job cleaning off the bleach that I used to kill the mildew before painting. So, don't do that either.