Hindsight is 49/50

Do we really need an answer?  

Why is my paint thickening up?  Is something wrong with this paint?  Is it bad quality?  Or maybe, I am just a slow painter and its been exposed to the air way too long!  If you know the problem then that’s easy. Fix it!  Hurry up and screw up your job, or not.  

Sometimes you just need to stop, access your situation. Figure out what you are doing wrong. Know that you are doing something wrong, or why else would you be standing here wondering what happened?  

You have a choice.

You can walk away and know you intentionally screwed up. Or, you can find the solution. The solution is there. It’s been there all along. Maybe you just need to make a call. We don’t always have the answers ourselves.  That’s ok. Bettering yourself is far better than working subpar. Somebody has the answer. You just have to find out who. There’s no shame in not knowing. Making mistakes is all a part of learning.

It’s not always a clear picture. If you give up you’ll never figure it out. Accepting defeat is always an option, but you won’t feel good about the situation in the end. If you push yourself, believe in yourself, and trust yourself, you might just surprise yourself. Don’t forget, you signed up for this gig! The goal is to keep making progress. Educating yourself will put you on a new level of success.

Getting over that obstacle is the only way

Occasionally, the best thing to do is walk away for a minute. If it is not working out the way it was working out then you may have made a change in your own performance. Getting a fresh perspective can simply be the answer. Sometimes I would stop painting and go help Michael screw on some trim or whatever he was doing at that time. Then revisit my paint later, or even the next day. What was working against me before with a fresh start went on smooth as butter. Then I would breeze through it!

Benjamin Moore answered my question. And, just as I imagined, I am a really slow painter!  A little water always solves the problem. Add water and thin it out. But not too much! Too much will make it too thin and ruin your whole gallon. You can always add more, but you can’t take it away.

Adjust it to your pace. Solve your own problem.  Take your time because once you make that mistake, there’s no turning back. Doing it right the first time can save you many hours of trying to correct the issue. All paint will thicken up if left exposed too long.

I avoided all those runs. Now, there may be one or two here and there, but who’s counting?