I found myself in mid-March with a couple of weeks relatively work-free, so I decided to have myself a little staycation. If I were a “real” blogger, I’d have used those two weeks to blog up a storm. But I think we all know by now that I am the merest dabbler in this here art form, so of course I did nothing of the sort.
Instead, The First Husband and I decided to re-decorate a guest-room, of which our empty nest now has four. In the interests of accuracy, I should explain that we did not actually ‘decide’ to take on this job; like Topsy, it just growed. It all began with TFH wanting to repaint a bathroom door, which had been badly painted first time around. While he was at it, I suggested, he should also repaint the closet doors in the guest-room, which were even worse. And, of course, as soon as they were finished, they showed up the all-round crappy paint job on the room itself.
It had been painted by my SIL, as a surprise for me, when I was too busy commuting 90 kilometres a day to and from work and onward to university classes every night to be bothered with it. And when I did have the time to care, I managed to keep it out of sight out of mind, because painting and decorating is one of my least favourite activities, second only to poking myself in the eye with a sharp stick.
My usual MO is to sigh heavily, within earshot of TFH, every time I catch a pained glimpse of whatever room I think needs some work. Eventually, he catches on and, because he’s like the Energizer Bunny, pathologically incapable of sitting still for more than 20 minutes, offers to paint/paper/tile/sand (pick one), if I will pick the colours and let him know what I want him to do.
This time started out no differently, but, in all conscience, I could not let him do it on his own while I blogged or Tweeted, so I guilted myself into working along with him. By the time it was finished, not only had we repainted the whole room, we also replaced the painted trim and skirting boards with oak, which I varnished while TFH rewired the lights, fan and lamps, and I finally got around to stripping and painting white a rather nondescript wooden bookcase that I picked up from a local garage sale a few years ago and filled with books, without bothering to refurbish it as I should have done at the time.
Even if I say so as shouldn’t, I think we did quite a good job.
And I finally assuaged my long-standing guilt over never having lifted a finger to help my father, during his countless papering and painting jobs around our family home in Dublin. My younger sister and her family moved into that house to live with my mother, after my father died, and undertook an extensive renovation. When they stripped the flock wallpaper off the old dining room, they found that previous decorators had left their signatures and dates. My father went one further. He left this message:
This room was repainted and papered from ceiling to skirting, between November and December 1970, by JR working after hours. Unlike [the previous owners], I cannot boast of family help. I got and was offered damn’ all. My wife and daughters ignored the whole job as if it was slightly indecent. Here’s hoping that the patsy who does the job in 1990 lives with nicer people or gets paid for it.
Sorry, Dad!





