These next few steps are the most time consuming, by far.
Preparing for paint is a tough a job, …and it will really test your patients for sure. Now, I only say it is tough because I’m dealing with drywall that has been “tampered” with before, …and in that I mean that there are imperfections in it. If I had new drywall up, this step would be a breeze.
I ended up spending a lot of time scratching drywall compound into scrapes and holes, and then sanding it down, …only to learn that I have to do it again because the first try never got into all of the crevasses. It is time consuming and frustrating – but you need to do it because it will show up when you paint.
On top of that, I had my first set back – the electrical box was on the wrong side of the stud. This was no good, because the fixture I bought was too wide, and would easily hit the side wall. So I needed to cut through the drywall, disconnect the electrical (turning off the breaker before proceeding, of course), move the box over to the other side, drill new holes in the stud for moving the wires through, reconnect everything, and turn the breaker back on. I made sure everything was up to code, because I do not like to cut corners with electrical at all – actually, I don’t like cutting corners on anything, …which is why I take so long to do stuff; I’m a perfectionist. :) Surprisingly, that only took 1 hour to do.
For this day, sadly, I spent well over 12 hours on everything. However I did manage to get up one coat of paint before the day’s end :)
