Stripping off
Painting a house is like dressing a body to face the elements – it takes lots of layers to get a watertight look. When I first bought Rock House, I panicked about the sea-facing walls and tried to cut corners. Originally, the two rendered sides were painted a cream colour, a grim little shade ubiquitous along the south coast and prone to showing up every crack and stain.
Oliver, who had lived here for almost 50 years, told me that he couldn’t remember the last time it was painted. It had always been a little embarrassing, he said, but then there were so many other things to worry about – he had no heating, for instance, and only a small geyser to heat the water.
Oliver also said that after a while, he thought people stopped noticing it. However, as anyone who has bought a new home will probably agree, the last thing you want is for no one to notice; so instead of waiting until I had the money for a quality overcoat, I rushed down to Farrow & Ball and chucked on the first attractive colour I could find. At first, it worked. The Oval Room Blue looked great; people commented on my stylish transformation. I smugly walked down to the boating lake and peered up at my great new outfit. Until, that it is, the first winter. Within months it looked, like all cheap cover-ups, frayed around the edges.
Neil the painter (who had advised against it at the time), generously came round and tried various treatments that professed to be able to stick flaking paint back on to walls, but to no avail. The real problem is, to stick with the sartorial analogy, my undergarments were letting me down. Without taking everything off, smoothing off all the rough edges and then dressing everything properly with a solid primer designed to hold everything together, it was inevitable that things would quickly fall out of shape.
As it now stands, my beautiful blue overcoat looks as if it has had a bad case of the moths, with the ancient cream render peeking out in large holes. I have tried ‘patching’, but this only makes the house look as though it is wearing the very worst kind of hand-made outfit. So now I have decided to strip everything off completely. At least it will give the neighbours something to stare at.
Next week: Seafood sensation
Oliver, who had lived here for almost 50 years, told me that he couldn’t remember the last time it was painted. It had always been a little embarrassing, he said, but then there were so many other things to worry about – he had no heating, for instance, and only a small geyser to heat the water.
Oliver also said that after a while, he thought people stopped noticing it. However, as anyone who has bought a new home will probably agree, the last thing you want is for no one to notice; so instead of waiting until I had the money for a quality overcoat, I rushed down to Farrow & Ball and chucked on the first attractive colour I could find. At first, it worked. The Oval Room Blue looked great; people commented on my stylish transformation. I smugly walked down to the boating lake and peered up at my great new outfit. Until, that it is, the first winter. Within months it looked, like all cheap cover-ups, frayed around the edges.
Neil the painter (who had advised against it at the time), generously came round and tried various treatments that professed to be able to stick flaking paint back on to walls, but to no avail. The real problem is, to stick with the sartorial analogy, my undergarments were letting me down. Without taking everything off, smoothing off all the rough edges and then dressing everything properly with a solid primer designed to hold everything together, it was inevitable that things would quickly fall out of shape.
As it now stands, my beautiful blue overcoat looks as if it has had a bad case of the moths, with the ancient cream render peeking out in large holes. I have tried ‘patching’, but this only makes the house look as though it is wearing the very worst kind of hand-made outfit. So now I have decided to strip everything off completely. At least it will give the neighbours something to stare at.
Next week: Seafood sensation