Pimped!

There now, an exclamation mark in a blog post. A rare beast indeed.

But you will see why. And it is all thanks to Christine’s suggestion of the Annie Sloan chalk paint idea. Thank you!

It just so happened that I was in England last week and I tracked down a supplier.

I toyed with the green range…. when is there never a paintbrush with a shade of green not in my hand?

But I went with the Graphite as it is what is closer to the walls of our main farmhouse office and the rill.

And yes I did pick up a pot of Farrow and Ball Sap Green for the interior of the potting shed which is for Later.

(I had thought painting the inside would be a ‘hide from the heat project’ this summer. But with about ten days of rain in the forecast, it might be a reveal sooner than you expect.)

So one quick smuggle through Eurostar customs ‘It’s water based, it’s a project!’ and here you can see what took me two mad days.

First the ubiquitous ‘before’ shot.

I only had one pot and it’s a big shed. So I decided just to do the front. (And I don’t even have an Instagram account which is where this sort of Potemkin pimping takes place.)

The Chalk Paint does cover all sins (old bits of random attempts of previous colours.) But it is patchy if you don’t sand back or just generally give it a good tidy first. And on advice of the salesperson, I did water down the first coat. A lot. You can see the first coat on the horizontal plank of wood closest to the roof. Very pale indeed.

It did not look promising. Mainly because I had to eke out the pot. So the second coat had to be watered down too. The advice on the tin claims that it covers 13sq metres. I like to be lavish. And rough planks of wood just soak up the paint. At least doing those fiddly panes of glass in the windows went well.

I didn’t enjoy the precarious ladder positions in the sloping garden. It was sporting getting that left side done. Right at the far end in the chestnut tree.

You have that mad moment when you see your life passing before your eyes and the distance to the ground rather far away atop a steep ladder and ask ‘Is this it? The ignominy of a ladder fall to end one’s days.’ She died with a paintbrush in her hand.

Creature was not helping during this process. It’s a good thing it’s very quick drying.

But I am thrilled with the results. One coat of lacquer. I need a second coat, but that will have to wait for next trip to the UK. (There are stockists in France, but oh so distant from here.)

Here is the reveal.

I had just enough left in the tin to try and cover up the blue water barrel. So it is less of an affront. And nicely accessorised.

And because I really want to show off the full affect, here are the pots back up and the plants outside hardening off.

I might even try and do something about that cat flap in the future too.

And now it’s time to get back to the whole purpose of a potting shed in the first place.

Plants.

And if I am not planting out in this damp weather this next week, you might just find me back in the painting clothes and stripping old paint off the battered walls on the north side and indoors. I won’t be touching the front of the shed (way too high) nor the side closest to the hedge. It is nicely covered in Virginia creeper so well disguised.

PS. Note the face mask in the foreground on the rock. We have Covid. Not very 2024, but there you go.