In which Betty has a Colourful holiday

Wow, it’s amazing how quickly the school holidays slither by when you’re busy doing something as important as painting your Mallacoota house! And amazing how much painting a house hurts! My aching shoulders! My numb and swollen hands! My poor back!

 

Ah, but my house – my house looks lovely! It isn’t that I had anything against the bright lime green bedroom, except there was a bit too much of it. It was very intense. As for the mauvey pink second bedroom – can I confess that every time I set eyes on it I wanted to scream and throw Barbie dolls at it? Both are now a restful rich blue (Dulux Blue Oar). The egg-yolk yellow bathroom was all very cheerful, it’s true – but between all those bright colours and the insipid pastel blue of the rest of the house, I just felt that I wanted something less – jarring? So... the rest of the house has become a serene light grey (Dulux Silkwort). I had a few uh-oh moments - the Silkwort over the blue looked a sort of dirty coffee colour until it dried. Yikes! And over the yellow of the bathroom it looked a bright light lilac! When the walls were covered, however, and dried, yon Silkwort became the colour I fell in love with on the colour card (phew! Can you understand the sinking feeling you get after you've forked out bazillions for about a thousand gallons of the stuff, and you suddenly think "OH SHIT, it's the wrong colour!!!)

Twas hard work, especially when all my middle-aged lady ailments started kicking in, tee hee, like carpal tunnel syndrome (it’s hard to grip a paintbrush when your hand is numb) and arthritis (can I actually hold that bent-over contorted position for as long as it takes to do the cutting-in on that awkward bit of bathroom wall?)

Torrential rain didn’t help either. Paint does not like to dry when the humidity is about a million percent, as it’s been this week. Let me tell you how wet it’s been. I did some washing a week ago, and hung it on the line, then in the garage, then on the line, then in the garage… and it was still very damp this morning, six days later, when I gave up and took it to the Laundromat in town to re-wash it and then dry it in an industrial-strength dryer. I had to fight everyone else in Mallacoota for dryer time, coz nobody in town had dry undies by today! It was ugly.

Still – it’s all done now (the washing and the painting) and the house looks great. Thanks and acknowledgements to Mark, who arrived to help out a few days ago and got trapped here in the Anzac Day mini-cyclone, and Pisshead, who provided moral support and some severe hangovers, but managed to avoid actually doing any painting!

Here are some before and after pics :-)

Barbie pink bedroom *shudder*

Lime green bedroom before

Lime green bedroom after

One more before, just to ensure you get a proper eyeful of the green.

...and again, the restful blue...

Insipid blue lounge

restful grey lounge

egg-yolk yellow bathroom

restful grey bathroom

front garden before mini-cyclone

front garden when it turned into Lake Betty