Desperately seeking reassurance....
June is the Interior decorating month. I really do have to stick to the schedule to the nth degree. The main reason is that Chocolat has to be finished by the time we go back to Naples at the end of October is that I am writing a series of eight articles about it. Once I have left here there is no chance to do anything to it or photograph it so even though the articles have an autumn winter deadline Chocolat still needs to be complete before then. June is the month that the interior decorating must be finished.
So far (17th) it isn't going well.
I started by having a lot of cleaning up to do on the carcass before I could start to paint.
Time consuming and not fun.
I then realised I had to put the sloping roof back on so I could work out where the room ended and the outside began. This turned out to be another grrrrr! moment. The original builder had fitted it wrongly and I had to fill the original holes and start again. More time used up and not a paint brush lifted.
Finally today I did some painting.
Be careful what you wish for.
I turned the house upside down and painted the ceilings. They have a very poor finish thanks to various lumps and bumps still there because I removed the coving. There are traces of glue and dints and generally not good. Even the main ceiling areas aren't great. I have no idea what it was originally painted with - oil-based paint I think - but all the sanding in the world doesn't seem to get it down to a decent base to paint over. I think it will be OK if the lights light downwards and not upwards, which they should do.
The next stage is the one really worrying me. I painted the two upstairs rooms and the finish is just awful. I can't get the paint to stick in various spots and it pretty much refuses to cover the original white paint which is daubed down the walls. The other issue I am having is that in a new kit I would have done this before building and used a roller and got a good finish but on this re-do I am poking around with a brush and leaving dreadful brush marks.
I am praying that the magic sponge that I bought which claims to rub down paintwork will come up trumps and give me a finish good enough for a second coat to look better than this.
Luckily Chocolat is supposed to be an old and neglected shop which Vianne has just given a lick of paint to clean it up, so it would have had pretty scabby walls I guess.
Tell me its going to be OK
Of course it's going to be OK Em. You realize don't you that the dedicated 'distressers' among us would give their eye teeth to be tackling a house that remained resolutely scabby. If you can give the place a fresh coat, however basic, you will have done as much as Vianne could manage and as for the ceiling, I'd say lumps and bumps were to be expected in a neglected building. Besides you have yet to furnish it, which will be a convenient distraction. Don't worry about the time either, we're only halfway through June and you know you'll stay up all night if necessary towards the deadline because that's what freelancers do (again and again, it seems - why else would I be at my desk replying to you at 2.30 am!) Why not fight fire with fire if the paint really won't go on at all - try something oil-based, artists' colours might do the trick - or would you allow a strip or two of old wallpaper? Courage mon vieux!Chas
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for taking time in the wee hours to answer my plea. This hobby is a fairly solitary one which is another plus for me except when I fall down a hole and could do with a helping hand back up. So, really, thank you. I was really fed up with it yesterday. I had actually bought wallpaper for it which would have solved all these problems but I then decided there were issues with that - not really fifties paper, not Vianne's style, she's French!, she also couldn't afford it and wouldn't want to do it, so it needed to be paint. I am USELESS at imperfect. I think the mini God is trying to tell me something. Thank you again. Marilyn
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