Corned beef vs butter
(Painting the hall in the flat. Anti-clockwise from top left: Before, after, chart of the river Tay above a door, Suzy in full painting garb: Scotland, UK)
I decided around 11am yesterday that the hall needed painting immediately. It has been on the agenda for some time now and I am beginning to feel parental pressure from a mother who hates the sight of the hideous wallpaper as much as I do. What has prevented me is simply hassle and lack of time. However, I felt in need of a repetitive pursuit that would cleanse my mind and ready it for a busy weekend. The fact that I am hosting a belated birthday party for myself this weekend in the flat also had something to do with the snap decision for some decorating.
If you have never seen my hallway wallpaper before, you can see it in the top left image of these four. The upper part looked sickeningly like human skin, slightly mottled in the way mine was after a bout of November cross country running. I heard someone refer to it as ‘corned beef skin’ which describes it quite succinctly. The lower part below the horrendous scrolled paper dadorail was again a mottled, uneven colour that reminded one of innards. It was altogether quite horrid. Anyway, I am always amazed with what a person can ignore or not notice after an extended period, especially speaking for myself. I usually notice the shortcomings of my abode when I have visitors, otherwise I don’t really see them.
So then, I found two tins of paint described as ‘butter melt’, but they were simply another variation of the famous ‘magnolia’ shade of boring that adorns many a household wall. That’s what wanted for now – just something inoffensively middle of the road so that we can all recover from the damage done by years of corned beef on the walls. I managed to do a preliminary coat all myself in two and a half hours. I was very pleased with myself indeed and after racking up the central heating to induce a quicker drying time, I tidied. My friend Suzy appeared in the early evening in time for dinner and a second coat – you can see her in a delightful blue overall I lent her in the top right image. She is standing proudly in front of her handiwork. Another friend, John, turned up later in the evening with a view to watching a movie. The second coat took so long to apply, even with his assistance, that we never got round to that. The images on the left show the walls before and after; this view is of the front door, bathroom door and Min’s bedroom door taken from the kitchen. The final image is of a chart of the river Tay that (another chum) Tom gave me – it sits above my bedroom door and now looks much improved by the fresh paintwork.
I may struggle to update you on time as the party will take up my entire evening and I don’t anticipate being in a fit state to write in the early hours of tomorrow morning. However, stay tuned and I am sure you won’t be disappointed with the next instalment!
– Today Rosie is celebrating her birthday by way of a ‘nasty nineteen eighties costume cocktail party’ she is currently organising –
