Fun with painter's tape.

The title of this post is completely misleading. We did not, in fact, have "fun" in the true sense of "Wow, this is a fabulously good time; let's do it again soon!" when we taped off our half bath in order to paint stripes on the walls last night. Why? Well.

1) The tape jumped off of the wall.
2) The tape made itself into a nasty green tapeball.
3) The tape got more wrinkly than an advertisement for Loreal Anti-Aging Cream.
4) The tape began slowly sloping downhill instead of going perfectly straight as we demanded.
5) The tape caused Rick to use language he doesn't use on any of the other 364 days of the year.

That's right: he said "What in tarnation...?!"

(Actually, I don't know anyone who uses that language on any of the 365 days of the year.)
Anyway, I'm certain that plenty of people have used painter's tape with absolutely no problems, maybe even while holding an infant in one arm and pumping a shake-weight in the other. We, however, were more than a little impaired at the task. Plus the tape was laughing at us. Maniacally.

In the end, though, we were victorious, and even though it was well past my bedtime (9:15, to be exact...I operate on the time schedule of a person eligible for AARP) we quickly painted on our stripes in order to avoid waking up in the morning to find all of our tape--and our dignity--hanging limply from the walls. Here's the bathroom's progress in pictures:

Step One: Tell the birds that they need to find a new place to nest.

Step Two: Prime, apply base coat (Benjamin Moore's White Diamond), and take out vanity.

Step Three: Seek therapy to reconcile your newfound aversion to painter's tape.

Step Four: Laugh at how much strife your stripes (Ben Moore's Ice Cube) caused.

Despite all of the attitude the tape gave us, though, and our seeming incompetence at manipulating it, we think our stripes turned out pretty well. The edges are crisp and the stripes are even, and there is enough subtle contrast between the two colors that our efforts were worth it.

Good thing, too, because if I hadn't liked it, and had politely asked to redo it, I'm pretty sure Rick would have wrapped my mouth up in painter's tape so he couldn't hear my protests as our bathroom continued to exist with striped walls.