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