5 Lessons I Learned from Painting My Dining Room

Life lessons are freakin’ everywhere

Over the holiday break, I took a sabbatical from all things writing and engineering.

I challenged myself to rest and relax (which I did plenty of), but honestly, that got old fast. My monkey mind needed accomplishment, so I sought out activities outside my norm that forced my brain to think differently.

One of them was painting my dining room, and man did I learn some cool shit.

1. Zoom in close enough and you can find flaws in everything

Pan out and the result is beautiful.

2. Preparation gets you 80% there

Masking quickly became my least favorite part of painting. It was tedious, detailed work that took forever to do right. But once everything was masked, the painting was actually the easy (and fun) part.

3. Most mistakes aren’t a big deal and can be fixed

You better believe my masking wasn’t perfect, which led to a handful of blemishes around the edges of the walls. I panicked at first, but then started working to fix them. Yes, it was extra work but it all turned out fine in the end.