I’m not really one for a spot of DIY, I’m more inclined to ‘get a man in’ when anything needs doing, be it painting, hanging, installing…you get the picture. However, I’ve recently decided to rent my wardrobe out (for wardrobe, think spare double bedroom) and made the decision to – gulp – Do It Myself. Before I even began to think about painting and decorating, I had to figure out where the hell I was going to store about €60k worth of designer clothes, handbags and shoes. Hmm, in particular, the shoe boxes would be a problem. Enter Heatons, who sell a spectacular range of coffin shaped bags that will store all the loves of your fashion life – neatly arranged one on top of each other – and zipped up securely to keep out dust. Eleven bags later…the room was empty and I had a catalogued list of items for each bag. The lists are seasonal, so – depending on the weather – I can flick through the relevant one, pick what I want to wear and then – voila! – produce it from the right bag. The devil is in the detail 🙂
Before I began painting, I wiped the walls and skirting boards and covered the furniture in a sheet. With an old makeup brush, I lightly painted filler into a couple of picture hook holes, waited 60 minutes for it to dry, then gently sandpapered the spots smooth. On yesterday’s newspapers I arranged my paint tin, tray, two rollers (one for down the back of the radiator, the other for the walls), and three different brushes; one for the edges, a smaller one for corners and the smallest one for around sockets. I poured paint into the tray and rolled it up to the sloping part, making sure I had just the right amount of paint on my brush.
I instinctively started from the left hand side of the room and worked my way around, always rolling up and down, never across. I worked quietly and methodically, with Lyric FM entertaining me in the background. When I was finished rolling, I brought the roller and the tray into the sink, washed them thoroughly and laid them out to air dry. Then I started on my edges, again working left to right. I left inside of the windowsill to the end and once it was done, I checked around the room to see if anywhere needed a quick wipe. It didn’t. Then I gathered up the sheet, put it in the wash and put the room back to rights.
The entire time I was painting I could hear my Mam in my head, “Like this Ash, see? Up and down,” or “Not that brush, it’s too big, the other one,” or “You hold that up while I measure it,” or “If we start now, we’ll be finished by lunchtime,” or the most dreaded, “It must be time to paint the living room again…”
20 years ago, my Mother was the biggest do-it-yourself type the world has ever known. 20 years ago, in our home, at least, there was no such thing as hiring a painter-decorator, so we did it ourselves and with 5 kids, the rooms got done fairly quickly. Which is handy really, since she liked to paint at least twice a year.
So thanks, Mam, because of cheap labour and an obsessive hobby, I’ve successfully painted the spare room, with absolutely no drama involved. And now for the bathroom! 
Trulyblonde? 