8 Degrees

Painting is really not my thing. Actually, I should be more specific. Canvas, sure. Walls, nah.

The weird thing is, sometimes I forget it’s not my thing. It goes like this. I get excited about the painting project, I carefully choose paints, go out and buy all the necessary paraphernalia, get everything set up… and then after about 12 minutes of moving the roller up and down against the wall, I realise that it sucks. My arm is already starting to ache, I’ve forgotten to put a shower cap on my head and specks of paint adorn my afro puff. I stare across to the wall that still needs to be painted, and I curse myself and my terrible idea.

Luckily the realities of ceiling heights coupled with a desire not to inflict dodgy painting skills on our shiny new walls, we decided to give this job to a professional. However, through no fault of our painting crew, what should, in theory, have taken a few short weeks, is now a month in. On-site coordination has been a little messy which has meant that some days have been far too chaotic to get some solid painting done without tripping over a tiler or electrician. Ideally, we would have painted the stairwell before the stairs were installed, but timings put that logical dream to bed. Instead, our painter has the challenge of attempting vertigo-inducing balancing acts to reach the ceiling space around the roof lights above the staircase. Fun.

Finally, there was the mystery of the peeling paint. Our painters would spend the day on a room, then arrive back the next day to find their hard work peeling and cracking. Eesh. So, as people who care about good work do, they would start again, sand down the walls, and apply another coat. Yeah, no good. Same again the next day….. and the day after that, more cracked paint.

Exhibit A

After some consulting with other painters, we were advised that unless we got the room temperature above 8 degrees, we had no chance of getting the paint to actually stay ‘fused’ to the wall. Mystery solved! There was no way the house was above 4 degrees, and the basement was likely closer to 2 degrees. (I don’t know the exact temperature, but that’s the reading that my bones gave me). Who bloody knew.

All that to say, our beast of a boiler is now installed, the house is feeling toasty for the first time, the paint isn’t trying to escape from the walls, and site visits no longer feel miserable (just like the paint, I’ve also been struggling during these colder months!). Hurrah!

I‘ve just realised that I spent the last few mins writing about paint drying…. HA. This is ‘edge of your seat’ stuff ; )