To paint onese;f into a corner. HOW??

I’m not too sure that this belongs in GQ, so please feel free to move it if it doesn’t, mods.

I can’t fathom how this phrase came into being. By my understanding, all phrases have their origins in reality, or better said, regular day-to-day happenings - regular enough for us to turn them into a phrase.

So going by this assumption, you’d have to be painting the floor of a room such that you’re inside the room and painted over the only exit, and continued painting until you’re backed up against a corner of the room, with no way out. Which is kinda fine - maybe there were a hundred thousand painters who were dumb enough to paint themselves into a corner. It could happen!.

What I don’t get is, whoever paints floors?? As far back into history you look, floors have either been made of wood or stone. Modern flooring too, with the recent inclusion of synthetic flooring material… none of which require painting!!! None!! So where did the phrase come from then!!!

Of course, my original assumption could be totally wrong. Feel free to correct me!

I’ve seen many painted floors in my time. Hell, they do it on “Trading Spaces” from time to time, as well. I’m lame and have no cites.

Also, I could be wrong that no flooring needs paint…!

IIRC, The Three Stooges did it in a film. No doubt it happened IRL long before that. Someone must be very inattentive to details to paint himself into a corner, hence the phrase.

[quote]
I guess you don’t get Trading Places, Changing Rooms or While You Were Out in India. From my limited observations, most people indeed prefer to leave natural wood or the tiles on their floors; or else they lay carpet. But many people do paint their floors. Many floors are made of wood that doesn’t really look good. Better to paint them than to have them look bad.

In any case, floors are often painted and someone somewhere has undoubtedly literally painted himself into a corner.

http://homes.mainetoday.com/homecare/030110floorpaint.shtml

http://www.oldhouseweb.com/oldhouse/content/npsbriefs/interiorpaint/4.asp

Move.com - Home Buying, Selling, and Rentals

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/asktoh/article/0,13447,237896,00.html

And try not to paint yourself into a corner while you’re at it. :smiley:

See, in olden days (and in Harry Potter), house elves were commonly employed. They didn’t eat much and would accept dreadful pay and conditions. If people decided to re-decorate, the assistance of a house elf was often sought. Traditionally, one would start at one side of the room and he/she would start at the other. Given that they aren’t too bright, unless one was careful, one could easily paint one’s elf into a corner.

I’ll go away now.

Good idea. :smiley:

Ahem.

The Three Stooges always dealt with situations from everyday life that their 1930s and 1940s audiences could immediately identify with–going out on a date with a pretty girl, shaving, ironing a pair of pants, waiting tables in a restaurant. It would be logical to assume that painting a floor would similarly be a task that their audiences would immediately recognize. And like the rest of their skits, the humor arises from the audience’s tension, as they know from personal experience how many ways there are to screw up dating, shaving, ironing your pants, waiting tables, and painting a floor, and they watch with interest to see what the Stooges do with it.

New and refurbished Hardwood floors are very often, almost always I think, covered with polyurethane or a similar preservative - that’s painting.

Also, concrete garage floors are sometimes painted with various materials to repel oil stains.

Our cellar floor is painted. Painting is important for both sealing/water proofing the floor, and to hide various patchwork repairs done over the years.
Always painted in sections, so no chance of painting myself into a corner

I have painted (actually varnished) quite a few wooden floors in my time, I’ve never painted myself into a corner (I know someone that did), but…

…You’re missing the point; it is supposed to be a dumb and shortsighted thing to do - that’s why it works as a figure of speech.

Hell, I have an old house and our wood floors are painted. No coating…just paint. It’s a great way to protect wood.

A fellow I knew in college is missing most of a kneecap. On a summer job, he was painting a basement floor. (House-hunting this year, I came across at least five houses in Indianapolis with painted basement floors). As soon as he finished, he realized that the only exit was on the other side of the basement from him. He had painted himself into a corner!

So, having all the brilliance of a college student on a summer job, he made a mighty leap for the exit, came up very short, and skidded along the wet paint on the floor into the cinderblock wall. His stop was made by sacrificing his kneecap upon said wall.

I just tiled a floor and we realized during our planning stage that if we proceeded that we were “tiling ourselves into a corner”.

We had to replan.

I live in a 100 year old house. When we pulled up the carpet to re-carpet last summer, the wooden floors underneath had been painted.

IIRC, John Candy and his wife did it while painting their boat in Summer Rental.

Once when I was little I was helping my dad paint the floor of my grandparents’ swimming pool. I painted him into a corner in the deep end. (On purpose, of course. He was not amused.)

I worked both construction and as a house painter in the midwest while in college, and a number of times we painted concrete basement flooring. Usually it was just a water barrier/primer paint to keep the basment dry, and then the flooring guys would come in and lay linoleum or carpet over it, but some of them we’d then paint with whatever the owner wanted the floor to be. Dark red and off white were the most popular.

We’d also often run across older homes that had wood floors that had been painted over. Usually the owner had dreams of beautiful hardwood floors just waiting to be uncovered and they’d beg us to sand off the paint. Normally what was underneath was crappy, knotty pine and god knows what other kind of oddball lumber thrown into a patchwork depending on what the original builders had access to at the time, which is why they painted it in the first place. Most of the time we’d wind up repainting it after sanding off all the paint and have the carpet guys come in and put in wall to wall carpet. A few times people actually got lucky and a nice floor emerged.

It would take effort and planing to paint yourself into a corner when doing it as part of a crew, because everyone who sees that you’re painting a floor just has to stick their head in and say “Don’t paint yourself into a corner! Ha ha ha!” like they were the first person ever to think of it. Some days you’d hear it a dozen times. That’s when you’d start throwing paint at people.