Why I Nearly Failed High School Math...

So while shopping at Home Depot one day I came across this little booklet near the Behr paint: Disney Princess Dream Room. Of course, M's little eyeballs spotted it and immediately the campaign for a PINK room began. I delayed by telling her to wait until Grandma came, and then she would help me paint the PINK room. Grandma came, saw the picture, thought I was crazy, but agreed to help me anyway. It all sounded so simple:

Instructions:

1. Make a mark every 16 inches across the ceiling, walls and floor. No problem, right? Easy.
2. Now connect the marks to create a grid. This, as it turns out, was much, much, much harder than it sounds.

Problems even Einstein couldn't solve (I bet):

1. In order to make straight lines, you really need a straight edge. We did not have one. Our tape measure kept curling up so our lines were way off. (NOTE: a piece of edging, while straightish, is not a good substitute for a real straight edge)
   
2. It's really kind of hard to connect dots all the way across a wall, especially when some of those dots disappear into the corner. (and the piece of edging you're using is neither straight nor long enough)
   
3. Did you know that pencil does not wash off walls? I went through approximately 17 little tiny erasers trying to get the marks off so we could draw new, equally incorrect marks.
4. After a while we realized that for some unknown reason, connecting 16 inch marks created a 12 inch square. Not all of our squares were 12 inches. So we found a 12 inch square template and tried drawing squares on the wall. That worked for one row. Two hours later, we gave up.

Frustrated, I said to my mom, "You know, I bet this is really easy to do if you just have the right tool." Without missing a beat she says, "What we need is a plumb line, you know, with chalk." I grit my teeth. " I have one of those in the garage."

I even had extra chalk.

5 minutes later the lines were connected.

And guess what? Chalk comes off the wall really easily! No erasers required!
GRRR!

This is the (almost) finished product. Surprisingly easy, with the right tools.

And don't even get me started on the castle stencil...

P.S. My husband explained the math to me. For those of you who want to know it has something to do with "a squared + b squared = c squared divided by 2" or some such nonesense. Email him if you really want to know.