Today I painted our balcony ceiling. The ceiling had been sagging so we got it fixed and now it needed painting to touch up the various bits. Because it hadn't been painted for several years I decided to do the whole thing - about 12 m square...

Went to Bunnings (mega-hardware store chain here in Oz) , asked the paint guy there how much I'd need giving the area. He says 2 litres should do it because a 2L can is meant to cover 16 m square... OK fine.

I get the ceiling paint tinted a light buff-beige (Taubman's' Atwill Buff' for those who care...) as that is what was roughly already on the balcony and looks nicer overall outdoors than bright plain white. Get back home, mask everything up for the edges and get to work. Due to the drying factor of the day (sunny 23 degrees C and a slight wind about 10km/h) the 2L is really stretching to cover the 12 metres squares overall as it dries almost as fast as I can paint it on. By the time I get to the other side of the ceiling I'm literally scrapping the sides of the can to get the last lick of paint out of it and make it last the distance.

Let it dry for an hour or so and go back to have a look. Sure enough the last bits I did look really patchy. Fine I think, I'll just go and get a 1L tin tinted up and touch up those bits....

This is where things started to go south...

The girl at the paint counter at Morley Bunnings was 'new' at the job. She was also distracted by another customer when making up my tint and I thought to myself "she didn't do that right... I think... not sure though" and so I took the tin of paint anyway. WRONG MOVE SEAN! Shoulda made her do up another one.

Back home, load up the roller, paint the new paint on... looks little dark... ahh well, maybe it'll lighten up when it dries... some paints do that. Wait a bit, gets a little lighter but nope - THE NEW FRACKING PAINT IS NOT THE SAME TINT AS THE PREVIOUS TIN! It's significantly darker overall. I'm now going to have to repaint this whole freaking ceiling again from scratch....!!!

This is when I started swearing like a pirate having a bad day...

I still have a few hours of light left so boot off down to Malaga Bunnings this time and buy a 4L tin of ceiling paint and in a tint slightly darker than before (Taubman's Teasure Map - it's almost the same as before maybe a shade darker) just so I can tell what I've painted and what I haven't. Get back home and start repainting.... the ...whole...freaking...ceiling...again....

By the time I was done it was almost dark and I know it's going to be pretty patchy when I look at it tomorrow because I could barely see what was painted and what was't, but what the hell... this time I have about 2L left over of the same tint from the same can to do touchups don't I..???...!!!!

So, that's my day. Arms that want to drop off, paint splatters all over me, a repainted ceiling, and I wasted about $45.00 of paint..

"Real painting' needs a history setting or a delete key like photoshop does... bleah.

cheers
Sean

PS - Would Bunnings take the dodgey tin of paint back for a refund..? Nooooooo....! I'd used too much of it AND they said I should have tested the new tint first on a small innocous area.. (of a CEILING?!) So I still have about 3/4 of this 1L tin sitting in my shed now, totally useless for anything...