How I gave myself carbon monoxide poisoning....AKA the Shutter Headboard Adventure

So I've found this store across town that has become my new heaven: Flea Market Things & Collectibles.  I stumbled upon it while trying to find the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Best accidental discovery, EVER. It's basically an indoor flea market without a bunch of people hassling you. You can just shop through the different sections and pay for them at the front.

I found a ton of things that I scooped up, but this little story is about the ugly pink shutters I found.  I imagine the ugly, pink shutters I found lived a depressing life as a teenager's abused closet doors. They were absolutely HIDEOUS. I'm talking hot pink, sticky, glossy paint with additional paint splatters all over the place. INTENTIONAL paint splatters. GLITTERY paint splatters. Awful. It was like those poor, pathetic shutter doors fought in a puff paint war, and were declared a casualty.  So there they were, gaudy and horrible, sitting in what someone must have thought to be their final resting place. I saw them and had a vision. A moment of clarity.

Hello gorgeous! This picture really doesn't capture how awful this paint really was.

I had been searching Craigslist and everywhere in between for a queen size headboard. I've never had a headboard on any bed. It's a sad affair, being so headboardless. As I just moved into a new house, with a GIANT master bedroom, I knew it was time. Even my old vintage furniture doesn't fill this monstrosity of a room. (I know, I know... wah wah wah you have a big room.) I just don't have enough to fill this space. I did a little feng shui-ing (not really, I just moved things around til the room didn't look so ridiculously big)... and knew that I needed to do something big to make a statement in this room.

I had no desire to even attempt to strip the paint from these.... Too much work, and let's be honest, I'm still learning. I covered both sides with some Krylon Gray Primer, which took for-freaking-ever. I realized that I also had no desire to paint the back of the shutters since no one was ever going to see them if they were against the wall. The least amount of work sounded great to me.

Primed and ready to go.

Next up, layer upon layer of Krylon Flat Black Spray Paint. Thankfully, black is great for covering up imperfections (just ask any bloated woman). Although you can still see the drips of paint from the previous, bad paint job... I figure no one will be looking that closely... and if they do and actually say something, I'll smack them.

The final product. Yes, I probably could have made my bed. Clearly, I need to work on my staging for these big reveal pictures. Whatever.

So here's the ridiculous part of this adventure. I did all of this in my garage, with the garage door wide open. There was a nice breeze flowing through the garage. Silly ol' me didn't bother to wear a mask of any sort. Silly ol' me has had pneumonia in the last couple of years. Because there's nothing that says "spray paint without a mask" like respiratory problems. My friend, Ian, even said something about the fact that I shouldn't inhale all of those chemicals, which I brushed off nonchalantly. Worst plan ever.

So later that night, I looked in the mirror and noticed that I was a lovely shade of bright pink. I'm talking... princess pink. I had been hiking in the mountains earlier that day so I figured I had a nice, little sunburn. Usually when I'm sunburned, my skin feels hot to the touch.... this was different. I was just.... PINK. I ignored it, thinking I was being silly...until later that night when I was having a conversation with my roommate and suddenly became VERY dizzy... and immediately ran to my bathroom to throw up. This means a lot. I think that throwing up is the worst feeling on the planet, and will do anything to avoid doing it. I started thinking about all of my symptoms, and had a flash of an episode of CSI. I remembered an episode where the parents died of carbon monoxide poisoning, and when found were a lovely shade of bright pink. Yeah. After a little more self-diagnosis via the internet, I realized what was going on. I gave myself minor carbon monoxide poisoning.  Ridic.



Moral of the story: Wear a mask, moron.

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