Painting: Urban challenges

San Francisco’s unique historical architecture is one of the things that makes this city great. I love the concept of living in an apartment building that is about 90 years old and has fixtures for wood burning stoves! Well, most of the time I love it. Last night, I was having some doubts.

I went straight to Ace hardware on Market after work to pick up a quart of “Oregon Trail” paint for our front entrance (Have I mentioned how much I love visiting cramped city hardware stores? The stock that includes one of everything ever made, the basement lumber selection, the items hanging from the ceiling, the paint closet, the Romanian clerks!) .

About twenty minutes into painting the trim I was feeling pretty bad about the condition of my apartment. This front hall has easily been painted 30 times and wallpapered at least twice. The division between wall and molding is barely visible anymore! Plus, the paint I used is going to require a few coats. Right now, it looks like something from the set of Les Miserables…not the look I was going for.

If I owned this apartment, I probably would have spent weeks trying to chip off some of these paint layers and cleaning up the molding. But I’m a renter, so I just added a few more layers to the pile. It’s the “circle of urban life!”