How do you tell when your paint tray is overfilled?
When it washes over the edge like a tidal wave all down your front, that’s when.
I discovered this morning that I have lost my decorating mojo. Not only did I fail to manage my paint tray correctly but my roller wouldn’t roll. It just kind of stuck so great floppily globs of emulsion dripped from it when I applied it to the ceiling in time-honoured fashion.
I was ok with the rubbing down. I mean, what can you get wrong with sandpaper, apart from sandpapering the tips off your newly bought decorating gloves? Fingerless mitts might have been ok in Dickens’ day but quite frankly, they are just further crevices into which emulsion paint can seep.
Dressing for the task in hand – I’m decorating the hall and kitchen in case anyone’s wondering – took about twenty minutes. I’m wearing my hair clipped up beneath a blue and white spotty headscarf tied under the chin. I have cling film on my specs. I have an old Portmeirion apron with a pocket on the front (Polyfilling knife, kitchen towel etc) over a long-forgotten short-sleeved stripy summer shirt over old cut-off summer jeans and big fluffy pink slippers. Vivienne Westwood would approve, I think. I am a much taller version of my Aunty Gerty. I think I would be acceptable if I wanted to pop up to the Asda at Dowlais Top.
I lost my old Polyfilling knife (Dad would kill me. It was his) but I have been creative with my icing spatula. No difference really. I have been known to fill with royal icing if I can’t find the Polyfilla. It’s fine if you paint over it.
But now there is paint everywhere. More paint than the time a couple of years back when Rolls my dog escaped from the kitchen and trotted into the living room looking for me via a big blob of paint on the dustsheet that I’d failed to notice.
This time, paint has found its way through the dustsheet on to the hall floor and there is a trail through the kitchen.
I have paint all over my hands and up my arms. There is a blob in my armpit. I can feel it drying and crusting up. There are dribbles of paint on my legs and it feels like I have some up my nose.
Thing is, the paint is not very good. I had a bit of a run-in in B&Q yesterday over a special offer which turned out not to be an offer and stalked out without considering the paint very much.
Anyway it may be Dulux but it’s too dollopy. It doesn’t throw off a fine spray when you roller the ceilings and walls. It throws great gobs of stuff as though it’s flicking fingerfuls of tapioca in a food fight.
I think it’s the wrong sort of paint. The wrong roller. The wrong tray. The wrong day, probably. I’m just taking a short break to write this but I should go back to it now.
Actually it would make more sense to go in search of my decorating mojo. I think I stand more chance of finding it if I go by bike. It’s sunny out there, after all.
Boadicea's Chariot 
jan
I am a gadget man but deffo NOT a DIY man, I’m a GAMI man (Get a Man In) but if I was a DIY man I would get one of those sytems where you strap on the paint container which moves the paint along a tube via an electric pump to the roller. No mess, no dipping in and out, no surplus, no spray and no blobs. But I guess you are a purist and would rather go through decorating hell and end up feeling mighty virtuouse and self satisfied than use one of these new fangled gadgets. By the way, did you remember to stir the paint before you used it? Just a thought.
janh1
Sounds like you need to thin the paint down a bit and make sure it’s well stirred.
Paint pads are better than rollers you get a better finish and less mess.
Don’t buy cheap paint, big mistake.
Ceilings? use that solid gel stuff in a disposable tray and buy a new roller.
Hi OMG. Well I looked at the Dulux Paint Pod but didn’t like the look of the tubes and the extra bits to buy. Looked like a DIY intensive care unit. Also it was pricey.
Funny you should mention purist because for years I refused to use rollers as brushes are more economical with the paint and you get just as good a finish. Yes I did stir the paint well thanks, with a spare chopstick.
Sounds like good advice Jazz, although I did the stirring thing. Actually someone else advised paint pads but once I got in to B&Q, I just reverted to type and bought the same old stuff.
That too is an excellent tip, Christina about the solid paint in the pan. Again, I succumbed to the “ten litres for a tenner” offer or whatever it was, so I’ve been using that.
Actually, apart from the bombsite that is the dustsheet, it’s all dried and looks absolutely fine. Stage II tomorrow.
Argh, ceiling painting.
Always does my neck in.
Laughing at the cling film on the glasses and the paint in the armpit. (I hope that’s a shaved arm pit or that could be quite painful…)
Cheap paint never gives the density of coverage, you end up putting three coats on.
total pain in the rear.
“I did stir the paint well thanks, with a spare chopstick”.
Well I think we have found the answer to your lumpy paint, chicken chow mien!
Oh, dear, despite your amusing version of events, Jan, I have to ask. Where any carpets damaged in the production of this blog? If so, emulsion is not too awful to remove; try deep red gloss paint on pale grey carpet!!
typo. were.!
To remove small dried on spots of emulsion a razor blade works well.
I have a piece of garden cane with many layers of paint upon it as it has been used for several years now as my stirrer. (But I’d never eat a Chinese meal with it.)
You know, I have a feeling the clingfilm wasn’t such a great idea. Whereas the bike ride…
May your mojo be well and truly restored to you.
Actually, I wear disposable contacts for decorating purposes, Isobel. They do become slightly splattered but then you throw them away! 🙂
Araminta, that comment is for me isn’t it and not anyone else?
Only teasing.
I now generally get someone else to do it. I think it’s better if I do what I am good at and pay someone else to do what i am not good at.
Did you see my comment to you on my page?
Evenin’, Janh – Ayup, lass! I bet tha looked reet sexy in that painting outfit. 😀
There I was, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I caught the scent of some very rare beef and followed my talented nose first to “Blissy biking” and then here. A mountain of meat and two of your entertaining posts to read over dinner. What more could a wolf ask for?
OZ
I didn’t Isobel, but on my way over! 🙂
Ho, ho OMG it was a *clean* chopstick. I would never be such a dolt…erm…
Yikes Araminta that’s got to be about the worst colour-spill combination. No carpets were ruined in the writing of this blog. Even the flooring cleaned up ok.
Thanks Isobel and Pseu – yes Pseu I usually use a bit of cane too but couldn’t find it so a chopstick was the next best thing.
Evening OZ – aka Compo! – good to meet a man who appreciates a woman up a ladder with a roller in one hand and a dripping pan of paint in the other. 🙂