One of the downsides of the second home is the double dose of diy and basic maintenance needed. (I realise that this kind of thing is now referred to as "a first world problem")
This is the "After" picture - I didn't think to take a snap of the "Before" - but picture the sort of faded and peeling look much in vogue for furniture nowadays, and then some.
We last painted the back gate and yard in 2003, a year remarkable for even more hot, sunny days than this one. So it was now more than time for a new coat of paint. We soon realised that the door of the shed needed more than cosmetic treatment. Once my husband put his mind to it, we very quickly had a brand new door, made from scratch.
I, meanwhile, was rubbing down, applying primer, layering on undercoat...everything going smoothly, apart from an ache in my left hand from holding the paint tin. I looked forward to putting on the final coat: exterior gloss in "Cobalt" - a particularly vibrant shade of blue.
Outside the back gate there is a drying green, where our neighbours on that side can hang out their washing. Just outside our gate is a wheelie bin, not belonging to us. But it was just the right height for my paint tin - or so I thought. One moment I am setting the full tin of cobalt on the lid of the bin, taking the first brushful and turning away; the next, I am standing in a puddle of blue, my left leg from ankle to knee drenched in blue. How could this have happened?
What does it tell you about me that I painted the whole of the outside of the gate using paint from the puddle before I attempted to clean the blue paint off myself? In fact, the only casualties from this incident were my training shoes, which were blue before and even bluer afterwards - but kinda stiff. Brush cleaner removed most of the mess from my hiking trousers, leaving only a faint blue streak, like a kind of go faster stripe.
This is the "After" picture - I didn't think to take a snap of the "Before" - but picture the sort of faded and peeling look much in vogue for furniture nowadays, and then some.
We last painted the back gate and yard in 2003, a year remarkable for even more hot, sunny days than this one. So it was now more than time for a new coat of paint. We soon realised that the door of the shed needed more than cosmetic treatment. Once my husband put his mind to it, we very quickly had a brand new door, made from scratch.
I, meanwhile, was rubbing down, applying primer, layering on undercoat...everything going smoothly, apart from an ache in my left hand from holding the paint tin. I looked forward to putting on the final coat: exterior gloss in "Cobalt" - a particularly vibrant shade of blue.
Outside the back gate there is a drying green, where our neighbours on that side can hang out their washing. Just outside our gate is a wheelie bin, not belonging to us. But it was just the right height for my paint tin - or so I thought. One moment I am setting the full tin of cobalt on the lid of the bin, taking the first brushful and turning away; the next, I am standing in a puddle of blue, my left leg from ankle to knee drenched in blue. How could this have happened?
What does it tell you about me that I painted the whole of the outside of the gate using paint from the puddle before I attempted to clean the blue paint off myself? In fact, the only casualties from this incident were my training shoes, which were blue before and even bluer afterwards - but kinda stiff. Brush cleaner removed most of the mess from my hiking trousers, leaving only a faint blue streak, like a kind of go faster stripe.
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1 comment:
Love it! Both the story and the shade of blue.
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