Decorating

Don't see red unless that's what you've chosen.

Getting some painting done - let us colour your judgement

Decorating our long room marked its transition from a semi-usable and draughty annex to the house to a room of its own; all 100 square metres of it. This week we had a decorating company in to carry out the works rather than attempt it ourselves or use the services of our contractors.

On the subject of the latter, we had worked out a budget price for the painting - guessing somewhere in the order of €1200 so we were less than pleased when our contractor's original quote was for around €2000. This reduced to about €1200 when we started getting offers from individual decorating companies. After he'd tried (unsuccessfully) criticising their specification, he muttered something along the lines of 'let them get on with it' not that this decision was his, anyway.

We chose the colours from a swatch opting for a deep pink to complement the grey 'cathedral stone' style tiles and also to set off our many paintings and acrylics and a mustard-yellow to go in the new bathroom to brighten it up. No doubt we will be treated to the usual chorus of 'Bello' or 'Bruto' when our workforce return.

Italy does not have satin or matt paints like in the UK - instead they do their decorating with 'washable' (lavabile) or 'non-washable'. The former paint being much more expensive - costing two-and-a-half times the other on average. With such a large swimming pool and the associated concerns about condensation, we chose to have all of the walls in washable and only the ceiling in non-washable.

The appointed painter called us at the end of last week to get our choices of colours from us. He (along with two younger helpers) then arrived first thing on the Monday, covered everything with polythene and tape and got started.

We had reckoned on the job taking 2 or 3 days but they worked together well, never seeming to break into a sweat and actually finished all the repairs and two coats of paint all in one day. It was very carefully done, too with only a few small splashes of paint here and there - far fewer than I would have dared hoped to have got away with myself if I had been fool enough to have taken it on.

The cost for all their efforts - €800; well below our budget and two days ahead of scheduled completion time. The decorator also left us a good supply of 'spare' paint for touching up etc. When we get to the outside of the building, we would be pleased to use them again and their quote for the external painting seems reasonable given the scaffolding necessary.

Good luck with your decorating.