The Frumplingtons

Sanding the yellow paint off our stairs is proving more difficult than we expected. The central section of paint on each step comes off easily enough with an electric sander and 40 grit sandpaper (sorry, I’m not sure if a grit is a proper SI unit or not). The four or five inches at each side of every step, however, is painted a sort of drab greenish-blue. We think it might have been there ever since the house was built, fifty years ago. Even 40 grit paper won’t shift it, so we’ve been trying other methods.

Firstly, we got out our trusty heat gun. We had some gloss paint to remove, so after we’d peeled that off, we tried the gun on one of the stairs. The yucky greeny blue paint still wouldn’t budge. Maybe I could have left the heat gun trained on the stubborn patch for a bit longer, but I had a hunch that it would make no difference. Call me cautious if you like, but I didn’t want to overdo things; after all, there’s no point in accidentally setting fire to the stairs just because you’re being over-enthusiastic about shifting a bit of paint.

Secondly, we got a couple of wire-brush attachments for our drill. For one moment, we thought we’d cracked the problem. But then we noticed the wire brush was scouring the wood more roughly than we wanted. Wire brushes are, in any case, really meant to be used on metal rather than wood, so perhaps we shouldn’t have been too surprised at their being unsuitable for our delicate little stairs.

We eventually discovered that the only way to get rid of the blue paint was to sand it off manually. Crazy, isn’t it? Why should relatively slow (i.e., manual) sanding be more effective than machine sanding? If you’re an engineer or a physicist, why not leave a comment and tell us the answer. While you’re at it, how about volunteering some of your valuable engineering or physicisting time and coming round to give us a hand with a bit of sanding?

Tomorrow (fingers crossed) should see the arrival of one of Shana’s mail order bargains — a big roll of extra coarse sandpaper. And when I say ‘big’, I mean about 30 feet long. That’s some roll! I’d love to see the Andrex puppy try to run off with that. Ha, it’d probably be a bit too…rough!

Update [12th November]: I was so obsessed with grumbling about the deficiencies of machine sanding, that I clean forgot to mention the afternoon we spent earlier this week lathering non-caustic chemical paint stripper on one of our doors. We used a whole litre of the stuff and, yes, I admit it did get rid of the gloss topcoat. The ubiquitous blue yuck underneath proved a more worthy opponent. The door now seems to have an extreme case of wood psoriasis, although Shana claims the peeling, distressed look is merely ’shabby chic’. Any more remarks like that and I swear I’ll cancel her subscription to Idle Homes magazine.

Second update in a week: We have finally given in to laziness (and the sneaking suspicion that some of the immoveable paint might just contain lead) and decided to repaint the stairs instead of continuing with our sandpapering efforts. We already wanted a change of look to the stairs and hallway; we’re simply going for a slightly different change to the one we’d originally planned.

It’s not often that I have to dress up to appear on this blog, but today I made an exception. As you can see, ’smart casual’ is the dress code for Club Frumplington. Strictly no trainers permitted, of course; after all, you have to have some standards, don’t you? Otherwise any old riff-raff would be allowed in.

The reason for all the fancy clobber I’m wearing? A bit of DIY. We’re sanding the stairs and getting rid of all the floor paint that we thought was so smart last year. (It’s a dusty job, but someone’s gotta do it.) It’s time, we thought (inspired by a home decorating blog) to expose the woodwork and let the grain and all the knots show through. We’ll give it a coat of some decent woodstain (a light oak or a beech, perhaps) to finish — if we ever get the paint off, that is. We’ve contacted a discount mail order DIY supplies company and ordered some more sandpaper. If it’s to do the job properly, it’ll have to be like Bernard Manning’s humour: very coarse. And another thing: there’ll be no time for sitting around pretending the sander is a mobile phone.

Honestly! You just can’t get the staff, can you?

I decided yesterday it was time I painted the landing and stairs. But it wasn’t until early evening I actually started. That’s typical, it can take me a whole day to get going, then in a mad fluffy (mis-spelling due to current state of my brain!) flurry of activity I do the job!

But there was a big decision to be made first. Our bathroom is at the end of the landing, so should I paint one side first allowing access to the bathroom in the event of an emergency, or should I paint all of it and have a bucket on stand-by.

Having made sure Chris had been to the bathroom first, I decided to paint it all in one go. It took a lot less time than I anticipated and as I reached the last step, Chris asked if I’d like a cup of coffee. Thinking about my thirst before the consequences of quenching aforementioned thirst, I said ‘yes please, I’m gasping’.

It was only after I’d drank my coffee that I realised what I’d done. But I’m a hardy soul, I managed to keep my legs crossed until the paint dried, and I didn’t need to resort to the bucket.

Shortly I’m going to have to apply the second coat, maybe this time I should start at the bottom and finish in the bathroom!

NOTE: Blog title does not have anything to do with spending a penny!!

If there’s one problem with having an artistic nature, it’s that you’re never completely satisfied: there’s always something that can be improved or jazzed up a bit.

Shana knows the feeling. Ever since we started decorating our new home she has disliked the radiators, especially the one in the hall, just by the front door. As she rightly points out, a white radiator doesn’t go with our colour scheme. But until today we hadn’t decided what to do about it.

A couple of days ago we put up a shelf over the hall radiator, and this did go some way toward making it a bit less conspicuous. But we still weren’t totally happy, and were thinking of getting some sort of box frame that would hide it altogether.

That was until Tuesday morning’s trip to Wilko’s.

Our original plan had nothing to do with radiators: we were planning to get a mallet and a couple of chisels for a little job elsewhere in the house. But then Shana spotted some tins of radiator paint and we knew it was exactly what we needed. There was just one little snag: it was only available in a sort of silvery chrome colour. Still, better than nothing, we thought; and definitely better than white, we agreed.

We picked up a tin and read the label:

‘Heat resistant to 100°’, it said.

“Hmm,” we hmmed. “That’s about the lowest temperature setting on an oven,” I said. Not that we planned to use any of our radiators for reheating pork chops or any other ovenly duties, come to that. But even so, a mere hundred degrees didn’t seem like much to boast about. And chrome wasn’t the colour we really wanted anyway.

A moment later, at the next shelf, Shana had struck gold. Almost literally, as it turns out.

“Look!” she said.

As requested, I looked. There were loads of tins of metallic spray paint to choose from, including gold, antique gold, and a dozen other colours besides. And a quick glance at the labels showed that this stuff was heat resistant to a sizzling 230°!

So we bought some.

And after lunch Shana masked up (the walls, not herself) and sprayed the hall radiator gold.

“Hell,” I said. “It’s starting to look like King Midas’s palace in here.”

I had to admit though, she had made a good job of it. The radiator looks much more stylish now.

And then Shana went and sprayed the downstairs hall cupboard doorknob gold too. And, incredibly, even that looks quite tasteful, although I couldn’t resist mentioning that if she went round spraying all the doorknobs gold it would look as if we had found the Golden Apples of the Hesperides.

After that, Shana calmed down a bit, put the spray tin away, and went and watched last year’s tennis, which is all the BBC were able to offer, seeing as Wimbledon was rained off yet again.

Frumplingtons mascot, Mint Sauce, by the way, is currently in hiding, fearing he might be next for the goldification treatment, and wondering what to do if he then becomes the lead character in our in-house re-enactment of the Golden Fleece legend. If you’re reading this, Minty, a big sailor called Jason and his crew of Aggronauts are looking for you. Why not be a good little lambkins and just give yourself up pronto?

Shana never fails to surprise me. Last week she announced: “I’ve bought you a JCB!”

Ooh, brilliant! I thought. I 360° digger. I’ve always liked diggers and dumper trucks.

The JCB arrived in the mail today.

It isn’t a digger though: it’s a drill.

Well, I have been using puny tools for a long time, so it was important to get some decent equipment. The new JCB, which Shana I will be using later, is a bit of a beast though. Big. Weighty. Powerful. You could even describe it as muscular.

Or should that be muscly?

Macho? Yep, could be.

Beefy? No, too reminiscent of retired cricketers.

Chunky? Nope. It’s just a polite word for fat.

Butch? No, no, got all the wrong sort of connotations. Let’s stick with muscular.

The new drill comes with full instructions. And if you’re a bit nervous about DIY, careful reading of the handbook can supply you with several ways to get out of doing jobs around the house. Here’s an example I found:

Do not use a power tool when you are tired or under the influence of … alcohol…

As soon as I read that I said, “Quick, get me a beer!” Once you’ve taken the first sip, you’re not allowed to do any DIY, however much you’d like to really. Here’s another good excuse:

Do not operate power tools in explosive atmospheres, such as inflammable liquids … or dust.

“I think there might be some dust in the hall,” I said. (Tip: It can also be a good idea to carry a small packet of dust at all times, just in case you’re ever asked to do some DIY.)

When nothing else works though, you can always resort to my Emergency Method for Avoiding DIY Jobs. Just master this simple sentence:

“Oh dear, I seem to have run out of Rawlplugs.”

Works every time: guaranteed.

As joint project manager of Decorating Ops at our new HQ, I am pleased to report that we are now tackling the hall (or what we prefer to call the ‘vestibule’) and stairs.

My legendary problem solving abilities were needed this morning, when I had to remove the last bits of wallpaper from somewhere around the ‘kermit point’ — about halfway up the stairs — and very close to the ceiling.

The diagram (left) shows a cross section of our stairwell with me on the upstairs landing, and indicates the degree of difficulty involved. (I produced this diagram was produced with the aid of my favouritest CAD program, PaintShop Pro 7. Please note, our stairs are not quite as rickety as they may appear in the drawing.)

Clearly, a ladder or some kind of platform would have been the best way to reach, but firstly I didn’t want to risk using a ladder or steps on the stairs; and secondly, we don’t have the equipment that we would need to build a platform. Besides, that would have taken far too long; I was only trying to get at one bit of paper, forgoodnesssake!

And so I came up with a third solution: a ‘home-brewed’ extendable wallpaper scraper.

Cool, ain’t it? (Don’t say anything: just nod.)

Although you can’t see it in my photo, the brush head is still attached to the other end of the broom handle I commandeered for this job. Truly, this a dual purpose tool.

Of course, after I had viewed my creation, I couldn’t resist adopting a plummy officer’s accent and giving the order first for fixed bayonets and then, in true Light Brigade fashion, to Charge!

Enough cavalry talk for one day though. Here’s the new broom in action.

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

Had a spot of decorating to do this afternoon. Just a bit of undercoat to put on the walls in the hall. We’ve been using something called Basecoat, because our walls are not particularly good, and I must say it does provide a decent enough foundation for any later colour you want to put on. However, it wasn’t so much the state of the walls that was giving cause for concern today as the fact that I might just have been taking the decorating a bit too seriously. If you feel you might have the same problem, here are a few signs to watch for:

How to tell if you are taking the decorating too seriously:

1. You mix your emulsion on a palette.
2. You stick your tongue out while painting.
3. You stand back from time to time and squint, looking at the wall with one eye.
4. You insist on wearing a beret and maybe even an apron when painting.
5. You sign your walls work when you finish.

Can’t get out of the artist mindset? Then pick a different artist to emulate: how about Jackson Pollock? Go on, pick up that brush and start splattering. There, that’s better!

Did I mention covering the furniture first? Yes, well do that too.

More home decorating tips coming soon. After we’ve scraped the paint splashes off the fridge.

Chris

The redecoration of the living room is nearing completion. As mentioned in a recent post, we have finished painting the walls, so that just leaves two jobs:

1. Lay the floor covering, which we bought about a month ago. (But first we’ll have to remove all the straw that we’ve been using as an interim measure.)
2. Paper and paint the ‘flying buttress’.

Yes, I know number 2 is technically two jobs, although we prefer to think of it as two halves of one job. In any case, who’s writing this post? There!

By the way, I really ought to explain what I mean by this ‘flying buttress’: surely to goodness, you’ll be thinking, those Frumplingtons haven’t got a real flying buttress in their living room?

Well, no we don’t. It’s really a chimney breast that divides the room sort of in half and looks a bit like a flying buttress in profile. It also makes the place sound a bit more exotic — or Gothic, if you prefer — if we call it a flying buttress.

So anyway, yesterday afternoon we papered said buttress with some rather tasteful embossed wallpaper — and no, in this case that isn’t a contradiction in terms.

And today we gave it its first coat of paint. Second coat to be applied tomorrow.

But firstly we had to make sure that the paint on the flying buttress didn’t stray onto our newly painted walls. So we painted the edges of the buttress first, up to the cornice and to where the buttress meets the wall. This, as you can imagine, required a steady hand and lots of patience; a bit like brain surgery, only with more chance of getting stuff all over your hands. (Actually, come to think of it…no, better not go there.)

At least we were both able to offer each other moral support during this delicate task, as well as being able to critique each other’s work:

“Big dollop,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“Big dollop.”

“Who’re you calling a big dollop?”

“Nobody. I was just trying to tell you there’s a big dollop of red paint on the ceiling. I’ll just get a cloth so you can wipe it off before it dries.”

“Oh, right.”

All was quiet for a few minutes, and then, from Shana, came the following epiphany:

“I’m not sure I’m getting these edges quite as neat as I’d like.”

“Aw, don’t worry about it,” I said. “Mine don’t look completely straight either, but I’ve figured out the reason why.”

“Oh, why’s that?”

“Simple,” I said. “It’s the walls that aren’t straight.” This observation has worked well for me in the past when a quick excuse for slipshod painting has been needed. And anyway, it’s true: there aren’t many houses over half a century old that have straight walls. I had more to add though:

“When anyone comes into this room, they’ll enter at floor level. They won’t be stood on a chair, as I’m doing, on the same level as the top of the wall: they will be seeing these high-level edges from an angle.”

“What difference does that make?” Shana asked.

“Well, I’m allowing for other people’s viewing angle by deliberately painting these edges slightly offline. The Ancient Greeks did this sort of thing all the time,” I said.

I could tell Shana was completely fazed by now.

“Yes, they used to build all those fancy columns all skew-whiff to allow for different viewing angles. They called it entasis.”

“Oh, did they indeed?” said Shana, not sounding at all convinced.

“Yes. So all I’m really doing is following tradition,” I beamed.

“Is that right?” said Shana. “Well stuff tradition. You’ve missed a bit.”

Chris

“Fantastic!” said Shana, admiring the way I had transformed our living room wall into a vision of loveliness. She pointed at one particular area near the door surround: “Is that supposed to be a trompe l’oeil?” she said.

“A trump-a-looly? Erm, no, ‘fraid not. It’s just a bit where the roller ran outta paint, that’s all. It’ll be fine when it’s had a second coat.”

Ha!, I thought. Trumpy Louis indeed! There’ll be none of that rococo nonsense round here. Not while I’m in charge of the brushes anyway.

Chris