It's all over, and the extension is complete! Glass lantern in the ceiling, and everything.
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| before |
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| after |
Except for the bits I'm supposed to be doing, of course. We went shopping for wall lights, and saw some we liked in a super-expensive lighting shop. They were made of partly-painted acrylic sheets, put together in a simple way that made me comment to the lovely Jackie, "I could make those"; so that's now a project-in-waiting. Then there's the multi-coloured LED recessed uplighting around the inside of the lantern, which was originally going to be built by the builders, but then got redesigned to be made of partly-painted internally-lit acrylic strips instead of dreary old wood, so I took that on as well. And then there's the table.
We ordered a sofa bed online from Made.com, and then found ourselves coming back home from Yorkshire, so we diverted into Birmingham to see the sofa in the flesh in their showroom there. Which we did, and it was fine. But the showroom is part of a fancy new retail space, where one wanders from one well-lit showroom to the next in a retail reverie, without noticing that ones whereabouts have subtly altered; and so we found ourselves gazing at fancy Italian dining tables retailing at a cool £3500 or so in a stylish emporium with considerably more staff than customers. Needless to say, I privately scoffed at the prices, although in this case I did say to myself, "OK, I probably couldn't make that."
Nevertheless, a seed had been sown. When we got back to Devon, I was idly looked at dining tables on Gumtree, and lo! There was a second-hand absurdly expensive BoConcept extending dining table, functionally identical with the Italian ones we'd seen, and just the right size for the lovely Jackie's dinner party aspirations, ours for a bargain £200. In white and stainless steel. And in Bournemouth.
And so we bought it, and had a lovely day bringing it home in Leo's van, and set about refurbishing it into a greeny-blue colour with copper bits, to go with the new chairs with copper-finished legs, already arrived and awaiting assembly. And then disassembly, because we decided to paint all the little white blocks underneath matt black, to match the other chairs (the ones with chrome legs) which have black bits underneath.
And so it was that the garage became the paint shop, complete with internal spray booth for small items, made out of a pop-up toilet tent that we bought once and never used. Of course I had to make a light fitting for the spray booth out of bits of rubbish I found lying around, but I didn't take a picture of it.
Anyway...
There's a reason I don't like sloppy stuff like paint and filler. It's because I'm just not very good at it. I always forget how hard it is, and think I know how to do it. Nowadays you can even watch a couple of YouTube videos of people achieving a perfect gloss finish on a priceless vintage car using only an aerosol can of matt black paint and a Brillo pad, and be reassured that it really is possible for anyone to get a fantastic result - but it isn't really.
This time I fell for it hook, line and sinker when we went into a paint shop to check out aerosol paints and the man convinced me that we should (1) use some stuff made by Zinsser (who?) which they mix on the spot to the RAL number of your choice (5020, since you ask) and (2) put it on with a brush. It will magically self-level, he said, and a superb finish is more or less assured! My arse it will. After all my meticulous wet 1000-grit preparation, and the careful use of a superb new paintbrush with trendy synthetic bristles and a stainless steel ferrule, it looked as if it had been applied with very coarse sandpaper. Even after I applied another coat with a roller, you could still see the brushmarks. And so began round after round of sanding and painting, painting and sanding, which have not yet, as I write, come to an end.
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| Table, "transition to RAL 5020", with toilet tent and wrapped motorcycle. Artist's own collection; sensible offers invited |
I am now clinging to the hope that the whole thing will eventually be rescued by another product, namely 2KSprayMax SATIN Lacquer Clear Coat. This justifies its phenomenal price by being a 2-part lacquer which fills up all the scratches in your paint, perfecting all imperfections at a stroke, and then dries to a super hard-wearing finish which repels water, attracts women and enhances sexual performance in all who buy it. Or so I'm told by the man in the paint shop.
Meanwhile I am still so fortunate as to have my own team of private dressers, one day a week. This week I will largely be wearing knitted head- and neck-wear from the lovely Jackie's winter collection, apparently.
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| private dressers at work |
However, the resulting "look" hasn't met with undisputed acclaim, even within the team...
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| aghast below! |
Fabulous! Will you have to buy another table if someone does buy the installation "Table, "transition to RAL 5020", with toilet tent and wrapped motorcycle."?
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