Lest you think we are liberated
My sister Jane is a paintaholic. She's transformed several reasonably priced apartments she's rented over the years into vast salons worthy of Architectual Digest spreads. She's got a special flair for the art of transforming trash to treasure, lowly to lofty and and mediocre to magical. She was my guest for ten days and let's just say we painted.
First the little metal railing on the porch. I'd had the dark brown paint for a year but never painted it. I'm not sure why. Jane attacked it at the first available moment. I finished it off adding hammered copper accents. Fun and easy.
While sipping our mineral water one afternoon we stared long and hard at the front of the house. Seb had chipped off several layers of concrete in an attempt to see what was underneath. Like a giant scab, he'd been picking at it mercilessly for two years. The dingy yellow, painted parts which were left were so dusty and crumbly that it was impossible to clean. Who would want the job? Who could sanely handle the mess? No one in this house has enough sanity left to handle any task like this.
Jane and I mused about painting fresh paint over the old painted parts one afternoon while Seb was at work. I had a gallon of white paint sitting just in our workroom. "Where are the gloves?" Jane is a fussy painter always wearing gloves and whatnot unlike me who grabs and goes. She is fast though. In a matter of a morning the lower exterior of the house was painted. We were careful not to paint anywhere near the already exposed stones. We only painted the leftover scabby parts and we painted it a fresh, pretty white.
Seb didn't talk to me for the next 12 hours except in shouts.
-"How could you just paint the house without telling me!"
-"Well, it's not like it was..."
-"And just grab a brush and say...
(Jane slipped out to the local café for beer)
-"Umm guys I'll be back uh later ...okay"
-(Seb not missing a beat) "...that you were going to PAINT THE HOUSE!"
-"Hey it looks better...it looks cleaner...!"
-"That's not the point!"
before we moved in it was already looking bad
so we just added a little coat of white...nothing drastic
Over the next few days our neighbors started commenting, "pretty railing!," "It's so much cleaner!," "nice job!" My 83 year old neighbor Marcel walked up to Seb, "your wife is nutty painting everything. Why don't you put a stop to that, heh?" I asked Seb what his response was. He didn't answer. I had the feeling he didn't come to my defense. The next day I purposely went over to Marcel's house and asked if he had any old paint I could have. He gave me three quarts of leftover colors and snickered at me. I pretended to be very excited at the prospect of painting something else. "Oh dear this is super! vraiment super!." I said, merrily carting the paint off in a cardboard box.
After all this Seb decided to contact the boy who talked about redoing our facade for a good price. In a matter of just a week the deal was done and the house is to be refaced at this month's end. So all in all it was a great idea to paint the house. It motivated us to go ahead with a project we weren't too certain about. And poor Seb. I had to save him from being the laughingstock of our neighborhood. After all who would "let" their wife paint their house without asking! Oh dear!**
**In France women were not allowed to vote until 1944. Up until the mid 1960's I've heard tell that legislation existed which said women had to have their husband's permission to work. Obviously you wouldn't dream of painting the house without asking your husband.
First the little metal railing on the porch. I'd had the dark brown paint for a year but never painted it. I'm not sure why. Jane attacked it at the first available moment. I finished it off adding hammered copper accents. Fun and easy.
While sipping our mineral water one afternoon we stared long and hard at the front of the house. Seb had chipped off several layers of concrete in an attempt to see what was underneath. Like a giant scab, he'd been picking at it mercilessly for two years. The dingy yellow, painted parts which were left were so dusty and crumbly that it was impossible to clean. Who would want the job? Who could sanely handle the mess? No one in this house has enough sanity left to handle any task like this.
Jane and I mused about painting fresh paint over the old painted parts one afternoon while Seb was at work. I had a gallon of white paint sitting just in our workroom. "Where are the gloves?" Jane is a fussy painter always wearing gloves and whatnot unlike me who grabs and goes. She is fast though. In a matter of a morning the lower exterior of the house was painted. We were careful not to paint anywhere near the already exposed stones. We only painted the leftover scabby parts and we painted it a fresh, pretty white.
Seb didn't talk to me for the next 12 hours except in shouts.
-"How could you just paint the house without telling me!"
-"Well, it's not like it was..."
-"And just grab a brush and say...
(Jane slipped out to the local café for beer)
-"Umm guys I'll be back uh later ...okay"
-(Seb not missing a beat) "...that you were going to PAINT THE HOUSE!"
-"Hey it looks better...it looks cleaner...!"
-"That's not the point!"
before we moved in it was already looking bad
so we just added a little coat of white...nothing drastic
Over the next few days our neighbors started commenting, "pretty railing!," "It's so much cleaner!," "nice job!" My 83 year old neighbor Marcel walked up to Seb, "your wife is nutty painting everything. Why don't you put a stop to that, heh?" I asked Seb what his response was. He didn't answer. I had the feeling he didn't come to my defense. The next day I purposely went over to Marcel's house and asked if he had any old paint I could have. He gave me three quarts of leftover colors and snickered at me. I pretended to be very excited at the prospect of painting something else. "Oh dear this is super! vraiment super!." I said, merrily carting the paint off in a cardboard box.
After all this Seb decided to contact the boy who talked about redoing our facade for a good price. In a matter of just a week the deal was done and the house is to be refaced at this month's end. So all in all it was a great idea to paint the house. It motivated us to go ahead with a project we weren't too certain about. And poor Seb. I had to save him from being the laughingstock of our neighborhood. After all who would "let" their wife paint their house without asking! Oh dear!**
**In France women were not allowed to vote until 1944. Up until the mid 1960's I've heard tell that legislation existed which said women had to have their husband's permission to work. Obviously you wouldn't dream of painting the house without asking your husband.
posted by christine at 12:42 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home