Paint the ceiling, part 1

First of a series, hopefully, and hopefully one which doesn't end in tears.

We've been needing to repaint the ceiling in our living room for the longest time. Towards the front of the room, there are a constellation of ceiling cracks that have gotten progressively worse over time. They've long since driven Amy to distraction, whereas I've been pretty good at ignoring them (in part because I figured I would be the one to have to fix them. I was right).

With Google, a paint store down the block, some able friends and relatives, my resources are actually pretty good. Good enough to overcome my ineptitude? (We'll leave that question unanswered for the time being.)

Today we started our project in earnest. First I investigated. I climbed up onto a chair and felt one of the cracks. Snap! Is paint supposed to snap off in big tiles like that? This is going to be a mess. So after staring at the ceiling a while longer, Martin and I took one of the chips down to the paint store to find out what we'd need to fix the ceiling and to match colors.

So we walked into the store and found a salesmen. "What do I do about this?" I asked, handing him my chip. "Well you'll have to peel back all that paint, spackle it, sand it, prime it, and paint it." "Yeah I guess so huh." (I didn't promise there would be anything remotely interesting about this project, by the way, which is why it's hidden below the fold.) I looked through some paint colors (it's "true white"), browsed around the store a little bit, and didn't buy anything. Real effective.

Now I'm back home blogging instead of painting. This will probably end up being a 46 part series if every installment is as incremental as this one!