The un-Dala horse fiasco

A few months ago I posted about Swedish Dala horses. As fascinated as I am by their traditional design, I simply couldn't come up with a way to make them work in my home, but I couldn't quit thinking about the plain white and gray ones from The Swedish Wooden Horse Company.

However, they are a little pricey, so I decided to look on eBay. I finally won an unfinished one a few days ago. It had a coat of primer and was ready to paint. All I had to do was pick a color. A thought hit me. Would black show up better against my white walls?

remodelista.com

My Dala horse...primed and ready to paint

That black one looked great, but the white and gray ones kept calling my name. Gray or white? White or gray? I agonized. Why was I being so indecisive? That's not like me at all.

OK then...gray. But finding the perfect gray spray paint turned out to be harder than I had anticipated, so I abandoned that idea in favor of white.

Since the afternoon was beautifully sunny, I decided it was time to paint my un-Dala horse. Rattle can in hand, I put on the first coat. Then a second. And a third. Covering the blue primer was proving to be a challenge too. So much for super-duper paint + primer.

Suddenly, the sun went behind an odd little cloud, and out came a few sprinkles of rain, which stopped as quickly as they had started. Whew! The sun peeked back out from behind the cloud, and I went inside to let the horse dry for a few minutes.

Just as I smiled about my good luck, I heard thunder and rushed out to bring in the horse and my supplies as larger raindrops began to fall. I could see a few spots that needed one last coat. No time for gloves, I hurriedly held the horse out the back door and gave it a couple of spritzes, necessitating a new manicure and making this the most slapdash paint project of my life.

 But I had thought of a perfect place for a white horse, so all was right with the world.