Blog From A Broad

i majored in art at university...



...and I still can't paint along a straight line to save my life. This weekend, we were mostly doing home reno things around Paul's house. Yes, I realise that I don't live here. No, I wasn't forced to paint by my big meanie boyfriend; I actually wanted to do it. You see, I have never been a homeowner and I find the idea of doing DIY around a house quite the exciting novelty. That is, until I actually start doing the work and then realise how it's mostly just annoying. Still, despite the mishaps (paint splodges on tiles and the ceiling, a slip when I decided the edge of the tub was a better place to stand than the stepladder, picking bristles off of my newly painted walls, oh I could go on and on), it's actually pretty cool to stand back and look at it all when it's done. I've painted over the godawful green leafy stencilling and peach coloured walls that have plagued me every time I've soaked in the tub and stared at them. It's all a lovely sky blue; calm and so very clean. It needs some accessories and new flooring of some sort, but for now, it's a big improvement.



Paul put in new lighting in the kitchen, and it's absolutely brilliant. No, really - kitchen lighting can be something to get excited about. He put two recessed halogen lights above the sink area, a nice chrome and frosted glass halogen light fixture in the middle of the kitchen (with 3 adjustable spotlights), and flourescent lights under the cabinets. It looks fantastic. We also found a paint colour that went really well with the counter and cupboards, but then ran into a rather interesting dilemma: the shops ran out of one of the tints used to make it. It's one of those mix your own colour deals, but that's a little hard to do when they run out of a colour you need. How you can run out of a tint is beyond me. To elaborate, how all the shops in Northampton could be out of this particular tint is beyond me. I think it's either a really popular colour or local kids have discovered a way to make narcotics out of it and cleaned out the local shops.



I've watched too many programmes on the UK Style channel and figured hey, if they can decorate an entire house in 1/2 an hour, surely a small bathroom can be done in seconds. Three days it took us. Apparently, paint needs to dry quite a long time in between coats (16 hours is just greedy and excessive, you fussy jasmine white gloss) and if you have no idea about what you're doing, it takes hours to paint trim without dribbling paint everywhere. Plus there was this "preparation" ritual (filling holes with Polyfilla which also, very greedily, demands that you wait 24 hours before you can touch it with sandpaper or paint) and the clean up afterwards.



And yet the novelty hasn't worn off and I'm actually interested in looking at flooring samples. Is this what happens to you when you reach your mid-30s?