Painting 101.

This is not about Humanities, nor the appreciation of the arts.  It's simply about painting the interior of a house.

But about Humanities. Up to now, I have no clue what transpired in my Humanities class in U.P. Diliman.  All I remember is the Professor, some lass known as Ms. Moreno. 

After some minor renovation done on the interior, exterior and the yard by some crooked contractor, I now tasked myself with painting two small rooms near the kitchen. As I've already primed the walls of one room before the renovation started, the task involved painting the new ceiling, and third coating the walls.  Then, I installed a new linoleum flooring.

Going to the second room, I discovered some cracks on the floor which had just been finished by the worker.  Frustrated by the sloppy work, but having no other recourse, I bought a small can of the trusted putty and repaired the cracks.  

Then it rained last Sunday, and the unpainted room got soaked.  Examining the roof and walls, I found the culprit - water seeped through the bottom part of the wall edging the concrete floor.  The putty mix won't do the job, I told myself.  So yesterday, I mixed some cement from left overs, and cemented the wall-floor edging, and some other linear cracks.

I haven't mixed cement in my life before.  What I did was watched a "youtube" of a Bulgarian man showing how to mix Portland cement.  So there, my "cementing skills," originated from Bulgaria.  I should tell my Bulgarian friend, an ESL teacher in Toronto, about this adventure.

This morning I visited the project and it looks good.  So I readied the paint cans, thinner, rug, broom, newspaper, masking tape, and brush.  But wait, my two roller brush got dried with paint and they were hard and unusable.  I soaked them rather late, in water and waited for them to soften.

Finally, I decided to buy a new roller brush, 45 pesos for a 1/2 inch brush.  The other day, I bought a two-inch roller brush at Ace and it was only 49 pesos and it was of good quality.  Now, I know why there are so many hardware stores in the neighbourhood.  They are making a killing!

For instance, when the renovation started about a month ago, the cost of a bag of cement was 210 pesos, then it went up to 215, then 217 and finally 220 pesos.  There was even a time when there was a cement shortage, and village hardware stores imported from outside.

But before I could start/resume with the painting job, it was almost lunchtime, so I excused myself, sat in front of the computer and started to blog.  Why, labourers take lunch break, too. 

I plan to finish painting the second room in 1 1/2 days.  The rainy season has just started, and the second room, being on a higher level is a refuge, if and when it floods again, just like last year's Ondoy.

Reminded of Ondoy on a sunny day, I cannot help but wonder.