Total eclipse of the paint
Decorating sometimes seems to be a never-ending task. Things have slowed down even more recently because of a problem with one of the upstairs walls — just a little six inch crack, that’s all — which needs to be officially inspected and given the all-clear by a buildings surveyor. Once they’ve been and had a look, then we can get on and sort out the bedroom and the upstairs landings, but until then we’re confined to doing what we can in the hall and on the stairs themselves.
This evening we started work on the newel post at the bottom of the stairs. If we’d given the job some thought beforehand, we could just have nipped down to our local charity shop and picked up a couple of cheap CDs: either Bonnie Tyler or Elkie Brooks would have been suitable. Or, failing that, we could have phoned Shana’s mother in Spain and asked her to send a tape of herself singing. Why? Because all three of the above have the kind of voice that could strip paint.
(I’ll pay for that last remark, I know I will. Shana’s mother — a bit like Whistler’s Mother, only less painterly — is supposed to be coming to visit next month. I think it might be best if I go and hide in the cupboard that day.)
But we had already bought a hot-air paint stripper, so we used that instead. And a fine job it did, even though we only did a small area this evening. There’s just one problem though:
We finished paint stripping an hour ago — and the house still smells like the Cutty Sark!
We’ve decided to use an orbital sander to clear the rest of the paint.
Of course, we could get Shana’s mother to breathe on it…
No, forget I said that. I’m done for now. This is Chris Frumplington, over and out.
Chris