THE WOMAN IS ALWAYS RIGHT? RIGHT?

So, for some insane reason my husband’s parents decided that they want to take the kids off our hands for 5 days – all three of them!

The kids have got a week off school for their half term break, and so have I (my husband has only got to go in for two half-days), so you could say we now have a week to ourselves.

We’ve optimistically planned various days out, including a visit to a manor house and gardens. Little did we know that the heavens would do the splits in the fashion of an overweight, out of practise ballerina, which would prevent me from spending time in my own garden, let alone the carefully manicured grounds of some big shot’s property.

Ah, I tell myself, the perfect time to do a bedroom make-over. No, don’t laugh, I can handle it, honest. When the kids were babies, and I was at home with them, painting and decorating was how I gainfully ‘employed’ myself. I have laid paving, administered gravel pathways, mastered the arts of filling holes in walls, stripping wood-chip wallpaper, tiling, laying laminated flooring, and even the odd electricity job.

Back then my husband John toiled at finishing his PhD and his full-time work, while I breast fed at home - baby in one hand, paint roller, in the other. The abstract art dried on the canvass I painted earlier, the baby’s nappies were changed, and the toddlers were put down for a nap, with enough time left over to make the curtains for the newly finished living room...

Then we sold on our homes for healthy profits and moved on.

So, now with the PhD sorted and kids in school, a bit of painting and re-decorating is a breeze for these old work-weathered hands. Stripping the bedroom - no problem. As the kids were away, we could sleep in their room and let my design juices marinate freely between spates of going out together and planning trips.

Terracotta would do nicely on one wall, I thought, and it would be easy to change the old torn light shade for a sparkling new one. I could dye the old curtains, instead of buying new ones. The kids might be away, but hey, they’re not gone for good, saving money when I can is still important this week. I’d visit Ikea, get a fabulous rug and some matching storage boxes and Bob’s your unc… but wait, didn’t we have an old mosquito net somewhere? Ah, I could drape that over the bed and carve a few Japanese characters on the wall as a border. I took some classes in that way back when, but I think I can still remember how to inscribe ‘love’ and ‘peace.’
Terracotta, earth brown, some white, and a spot of green – natural colours – those are the colours our bedroom needs to add a bit of warmth to it. It’s the only room in the house that my itchy hands haven’t had a go of yet.

So, I slipped on my old yard shoes and went out to the shed to mix the paint. Well, you don’t expect me to go to the store to buy some? I’ve got pots of pastel, off white and wheat coloured shades of unused paint in the shed. I’ve got to buy that rug remember, something nice and good looking, you don’t expect me to buy the paint too. Don’t worry, I’ve done it lots of times before, it’ll be a breeze. A bit of that wheat coloured one, mixed with a portion of the white, a blob of red, and a spot of charcoal should give me just the shade.

John came back home from work while I was still putting the paint on the dull, white wall. It will be a welcome change from the tripe that had been put there by the previous owners. The entire house was covered in wood-chip wall paper, which in turn were covering up walls that had been hacked out, abused, and bored into seemingly just for fun.
“That’s different. It’s nice,” John said.
“It is,” I replied, somehow I felt a ‘but’ coming. John is gentle, and in order for him to say he didn’t like something, he would first say how much he liked it. Wait, that doesn’t make sense. Does it? What I mean is that, well… he wouldn’t just shout out, “What on earth have you done to our bedroom wall woman?”
“Why is it so pink?” he asked.
“It’s not pink.” I said. As you may have guessed, I’m not so gentle, I shout out things like, “What on earth have you done to our bedroom wall woman?” and other suitable quotes.
I stepped back and took a look for myself. Oh my word! It’s really pink!
“It’s not pink.” I said again. Freaking out because it was so pink!
“Looks pink to me,” John said.
Me too! “It’s terracotta.” I answered with a straight face, wondering how much charcoal I had left in the shed.
“Want some tea?” John asked.
“Please.”
So he went downstairs to make me some tea, but not before taking another quizzical look at the terracotta wall, probably thinking that the ever popular mid-life crisis he’s expecting must be arriving at last with the onset of acute colour blindness.
Meanwhile, the power of suggestion had got me in a strong-hold. I didn’t want my husband to have to sleep in a little girl’s pink bedroom. I obviously had to change it.

Ten minutes later I’d finished the wall and my word, was it pink or what. I went back to the shed, and another ten minutes later, after a good dollop of more charcoal paint and enough stirring to make my arm ache, I left the shed with a beautiful shade of terracotta (real this time) which I tried on a bit of wall in there, and it was the most perfect boudoir shade you’ve ever seen.

It was cinema night that night, and after putting on a couple more coats of paint, John and I went out without having to secure a baby-sitter (though he did try to check on the kids before we walked out the door). Harrison Ford was just as good in ‘Indiana Jones And The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ as he was in ‘Temple of Doom,’ and Cate Blanchet’s accent was to die for.


Now two days later, the paint is all dry, the old mosquito net has been restored, and the dyed curtains have come out a fabulous shade of terracotta. So great, that I’m really happy I didn’t buy those new curtains I picked up (but put down again) in Ikea the other day. The kids are going to be pleased. Tonight is our slap-up dinner night, and would you believe, we’re going to a wonderful Moroccan restaurant.

I get this nagging feeling that I’ve done all this work on redecorating our bedroom, so that the kids would have a surprise when they get back home. See, even without them here, the parent inside me can’t stop trying to make them happy.

And John, oh, he’s happy with the new colour. After all, he’s got a brand new boudoir without ever having to lift a paint roller. And the best part is, it’s not at all pink.