At some point in your life, you’re probably going to have to paint a wall, particularly if you’re a homeowner or if you’re a home renter who is trying to hide certain funny stories from the landlord.
Of course, if you’re doing a job, you want to do it right, and also you want to push it off as long as possible under the guise of doing something productive, which is why today we present:
HOW TO PAINT YOUR WALL -- A PRIMER
Primer! Don’t forget primer.
Why Should You Paint Your Walls?
Perhaps you have to redo a wall because one of your children threw another one of your children through that wall, and you can’t hang a picture large enough to cover the hole. And then your wife made them patch the wall and then spackle it and then spackle it again, and it’s a whole process that so far has been taking years of coaxing your kids to do each step one at a time, because it’s neither one’s fault, but now your family is heading into shidduchim, you hope, and people are coming in and judging your walls, and even though your kids kind of deserve it because if anything in your house reflects on them it’s this, you don’t necessarily want it to reflect on the one who’s in shidduchim at this moment. And then you say, “Don’t you want her to find a shidduch and move out?” So finally, your kids are like, “Fine. How do we do it?” and you talk them through it. And then you write an article!
I’m just saying what you would do. This has nothing to do with my own life. Just be happy that you’re fixing a wall, and that this article isn’t called something like, “How to fix a breakfront. Of which you’ve broken the front.”
There are also other reasons to paint a wall. For example, some people say, “I’m sick and tired of this color.” Which is definitely something our grandparents used to say in Europe. Painting is definitely the quickest way to change the color of a room, other than opening the shades. If you’re sick and tired of a room’s color, you may be spending too much time in that room.
Also, some people want to paint some of their bedrooms after their kids leave the house, because they can no longer say things like, “You’re sleeping in Chavi’s room,” because Chavi doesn’t live there anymore. So this way, they can say, “You’re in the pink room,” or “You’re in the blue room,” or “You’re in the yellow room.” Those are the three main colors people use for this.
Choosing a Color
Some thought definitely has to go into this, because you’re going to be like, “I thought the room was white,” and your wife is going say, “#1, it’s not white. It’s linen white.” Which makes no sense. Not all linen is white.
“Linen white!”
So you say, “Okay, I’ll paint it linen white.”
But the truth is that it doesn’t really matter if it’s exact, because either way you have to paint that whole wall in that color – not just the spot you’re trying to fix. And then as long as it’s close enough in color to the other 3 walls, people will just think the lighting is playing tricks on them. Especially if you have furniture in the corners. Because as it is, the other 3 walls in the room are full of handprints. So no matter what, the new wall is going to be a different color than the other walls. The best idea is to just put ceiling-height furniture along as many walls as you can. This is why Jews have so many bookcases.
If you’re actually trying to paint a whole room, though, you can decide on a color. Get some paint swatches and tape them to the walls using that horrible painters’ tape that doesn’t actually stick and ask everyone who comes to the house which color they think looks best. That way, they’re aware that you’re going to paint your wall, and when you take the samples down, they can go, “Oh, you painted!” And you can say, “No, not yet. It’s just really bad tape.”
Protecting Your Clothing
All you need is a set of clothes you don’t wear anymore. But not because it’s tight or restrictive or you split it exercising that time. It needs to fit you, but have something wrong with it that you would never wear it in public. Make sure to keep one set of clothes like this in your closet at all times. The best is to use a set of clothes that you once got paint on by accident, and then you decided, “I guess these are my painting clothes.” From time to time, put them on to make sure they fit. The last thing you want is to run out on the day to buy new painting clothes.
If you don’t want anyone to see you in your painting clothes, paint your windows first.
Preparing the Wall to be Painted
Sit the wall down and say, “Listen, Mizrach Vant, it’s not that we don’t like you. But… I feel like I’m talking to a wall.”
Obviously, if the issue with the wall is that there is a teenager-shaped hole in it, you have some spackling work to do first. And you can’t just spackle it. Depending on the size of the hole, you can’t spackle shut an 8-inch gap. How will the spackle know where to stay?
So first, you have to screw a piece of drywall into the hole. And to do that, you have to cut the hole bigger to make it straight and also to find a beam in the wall to which you can screw the drywall. You’re basically making a nicer hole, so you don’t have to figure out how to cut a piece of drywall that fits whatever jagged shape the hole was.
In our house, we keep a bunch of drywall from past construction projects for just this purpose. My wife has never let me throw out a piece of drywall. I have one piece that is 8 feet tall and three inches wide, in case that’s what shape the hole is. You never know what your kids are going to do.
Once you have drywall in the hole, you can spread the spackle, using a basic cream-cheese-on-matzah technique. Then you wait for it to dry, and then you sand it down to make sure it’s flat. Repeat this process until you are completely out of spackle and everything in your house is covered in a fine layer of spackle dust that reappears about a half hour after you clean it. You have to clean spackle dust at least twice.
Protecting Your Things
Move any furniture that is pushed up against the wall and of course the big pile of drywall in the corner if this is the wall you keep your drywall against because your 8-foot piece is too tall for the basement, and your garage will not keep your drywall dry.
To protect your floors, get a roll of some kind of paper that is not absorbent, such as the paper that kindergarten teachers lay out on the floor when they trace their students. Tape it down with that blue painters’ tape that doesn’t actually stick to anything, making sure that when you make sudden movements, the tape doesn’t flutter away. Alternatively, you can use a tape that actually sticks, and if it ruins the walls, you can paint over it later, once you remove the tape, although only Hashem knows what’s going to be protecting the floors at that point. You’ll probably be long past caring by then.
Painting the Wall
For the most part, painting is a skill you learned in kindergarten -- just don’t go outside the lines. With the lines being the places that the wall meets other walls or floors or bookcases that you’re never gonna move. And in kindergarten, you didn’t have tape.
Stir the paint with a painting stick for at least five minutes or until you lose it in the paint.
The wider the roller, the quicker you can finish a room. That said, don’t get a roller that is wider than your paint tray and then dip it into the bucket one end at a time.
Try not to step in the paint bucket.
When you’re putting on the second coat, it might be hard to tell where you’ve painted and where you haven’t, unless you’re doing the second coat in an entirely different color. Make sure to keep touching the wall to see where it’s wet.
Enjoying Your Wall
If you put up a sign that says, “WET PAINT”, absolutely everyone will keep touching it. Including you. And then eventually, someone will say, “No, it’s not,” and then you’ll know. Or you can just wait until a child shoves another child into the wall again and see if their clothes come out dirty. Unless they all wear white shirts; then you can’t tell.
“It’s linen white!”
Oh. Then what color are the shirts?
Hang pictures over the parts where you felt the wall.
Call people over to your house and wait for them to say something. They might not. If you want, you can say, “We painted the wall; did you notice?” and then they’ll say that you’ve done a good job, even if you haven’t. There is no harm for them in lying in this scenario. It’s not like you’re going to offer to do this in their homes.
At no point should you ask yourself why this had to be part of Pesach cleaning.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia, a monthly humor columnist, and has written six books, all published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
