Working with Paint: My Painting Story… Being the Paint Lady

Over the past few months I have noticed a rising interest in the painting aspect of this little blog… while I love to talk about home decor and decorating our cute little three bedroom home is particularly important to me my readers have noticed that I know a thing or two about paint.

Quite frankly it’s hard to miss with posts like How to Paint Like a Pro: Tips and Tricks from Sherwin Williams University, How to Keep Track of the Paint Colors in Your Home, The ULTIMATE List of Painting Tools and Ask Sherwin Williams… What are the most Popular Paint Colors? Plus there’s a little post called Working Girl that I wrote back when I first started my Sherwin Williams journey.

So I thought today I would share with you my painting story… on how I became the paint lady.

Looking for a bunch of posts on painting? I’ve got you covered!
Click here to see all of my helpful paint posts in one place!

I’ll be honest… it’s not a story much different from hundreds of others, in fact my story is fairly ordinary in most ways. I grew up with a Mom who loved to create, she taught me to shop at thrift stores and not discard things because they weren’t pretty anymore. She taught me the value of a dollar and that anything can be transformed with a little love.

I grew up making all kinds of art projects… and messes. Lots of messes. I can remember glittering an entire bedspread when I was about 9 because I ran out of things to glitter and tried to fit a rock in my glitter machine. Because instead of moving on (when I ran out of craft supplies) and trying to find a different activity I chose to make a rock pretty. Hey rocks are free right?

At least I learned that lesson young… don’t turn on the glitter machine if the door isn’t shut all the way.

Maybe that’s where my love for glitter comes from… who knows! 😉

As one of six children Mom knew how to stretch a dollar and as a stay at home Mom she definitely put that talent to use… why throw away something that can be completely made over with a quick coat of paint? I quickly learned that I might not be able to afford fancy craft supplies for every project but with a steady hand and a lot of patience I could paint just about anything.

That love of painting carried over as I graduated high school and then college. I didn’t have beautiful furniture for every single room of my apartment but I did have a can of white paint and a ton of time to kill (finding a job was sooo boring! 😉 ).

I painted a hand-me-down coffee table, a kitchen table Mom found on the side of the road, a credenza that I paid $20 bucks for at a thrift store, a dresser my aunt didn’t need anymore, a gorgeous pie safe, a craft cabinet and a few side tables my Mom had forgotten… and slowly things started to come together.

I started to learn about this crazy new thing called chalk paint. I drove 45 minutes to the nearest store that carried the stuff and brought home a quart of Paris Grey. It was sooo new that I hadn’t even heard of wax and had to drive back to the store (45 minutes away) to pick up a can.

Mom was horrified that I was painting furniture but I fell in love!

My love for paint only grew and today I spend 44 hours a week working with paint at good old Sherwin-Williams.

Everyday I get dozens of questions about paint. Customers want to know what sheen to use for what wall. Readers want to know which gray has the slightest blue undertone for their sons bedroom.

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