The Devil Wall

You know the scary movie where the person turns around, and there is mysterious writing on the wall that wasn't there before, and it looks like it's written in blood? This is the horror story that happened in my kitchen today.  Except the writing isn't in blood, it's in 

WASHABLE CRAYOLA MARKER. 

It has happened before, and it is back to haunt me...

A little background. A few years ago, we painted one of our walls dark brown. Before we painted, I - being the fun mom that I am - let the kids draw on the wall with washable crayola markers. We were going to paint over it, so I didn't see the harm. Boy, was I wrong. Wrong with a capital W. There was a whole lot of harm. Deep harm. Scars that won't go away. 

We primed. We could see the marker through the primer a bit, but we didn't think too much about it. We were using dark walnut brown paint. Nothing would show up underneath dark paint, especially not crayola markers. We got one coat of paint up and as it dried, we could see the outline of the kids' drawings - stars, animals, words.  Well, the second coat would surely cover it.

 Have I mentioned we were wrong? Because we were. 

The second  coat of paint didn't cover it either. Neither did the second coat of primer over the two coats of paint. Every time the paint dried, we could see the stars. It was those "damn stars" as we still call them.  Finally, we were satisfied that we could no longer see those stars after the fourth or fifth coat of paint, over the two coats of primer. 

Fast forward to today, where I decided that the dark brown was too dark. I wanted more light in my life. So I painted all of my walls light grey. I used "Super Paint" from Sherwin Williams. It has primer in it. It is awesome paint and looks great on everything. 

Except for the devil wall. 

That's what I named it this afternoon. Because guess what happened?

 I stood back to admire my work, and saw those damn stars staring back at me. 

The stars that are supposed to be forever hidden under two coats of primer and at least four coats of paint. I stepped back in horror and also noticed letters and animals and scribbling and everything else the boys decided to draw on that fateful day where I tried to be the fun mom who let their kids draw on the walls. It all stands out even more because it is a light paint. These are bad pictures, but can you see it? Maybe it's fate. Maybe we're supposed to have writing on our wall that just won't go away.

Bryan is out of town, so I called him to tell him that our house is haunted. Or at least our wall is. He is almost convinced that he is going to have to redo the sheet rock to get rid of the devil in the wall. 

So whatever you do, don't be the fun mom who lets the kids draw on the wall before you paint. It will come back to haunt you....  (pretend the music from the X-files is playing in the background)