The Decoration Game

Blokes love stuff.  They just do.  Those chaps that live in caves subsisting on rice and calm thoughts, they are all very well and may go for minimalist chic atop a Hymalayan pea but, given the choice, by which I mean given an Argos catalogue, they’d swap zen for a karoke machine and a snack and sandwich toaster faster than you can chant ‘Om’.

Bluntly, blokes acquire stuff because it is useful.  William Morris (inventor of many wallpaper prints and the classic Minor) was of the opinion that you should have nothing in your house that is not beautiful or useful.

And it’s that ‘or’ which allows blokes to possess items such as replica sonic screwdrivers because, while they may not actually be able to defeat an actual Dalek, they are jolly nice to look at, and hold, and play with when the wife is out.  Screwdrivers plural of course because let’s face it, if you are the sort of chap that owns a replica sonic screwdriver, you are the sort of chap who is going to own more than one replica sonic screwdriver.

Chaps of a blokish tendency, however, tend toward the useful possessions, and oddly enough this too involves collections of screwdrivers.  To begin with, you need at least two types, normal and Phillips head.  Then you need different sized ones, and ones of different length.  Then you need an electric one because once you have used an electric screwdriver, you will be wondering why you have been wasting your life tightening and loosening screws like some sort of bloody serf from the dark ages.

Obviously you will need a shed to store all of this stuff in.  Luckily, you have an electric screwdriver, so putting one together will be a doddle.

Gear is useful, it’s a fact.  There comes a point in a man’s life when he will finally have as many tools and as many jars of assorted nuts, bolts and screws as his father did.  It’s quite a proud moment and one to be celebrated with a cup of tea and most definitely not telling the wife how right you were not to throw anything important away for the last two decades.

The right tool for the right job is important.  A bad craftsman blames his tools but I can tell you with absolute authority that a bloke decorating who discovers on the second brushstroke that his brushes, or roller, are inferior is instantly on the web to Screwfix, in the car to pick it up his order and back in time to pick the moulting bristles or roller pile pillings from the still moist emulsion, and then do the job right.

I have recently been decorating.  There is nothing quite like being in a room with all the windows closed on a baking hot day wondering if the paint is supposed to be that colour or if the fumes are making you hallucinate, listening to Radio 5 because that’s the law.

The latest discovery to vastly improve my life?  Selotape for carpets.

Previously, to protect carpets one would spend time and masking tape sticking down sheets of polythene, or sheets of newspaper.  Not any more.  Now you can buy these big rolls of selotape that stick to the carpet.  Down they go and you can start splashing the gloss about the place without fear of sticky stains on the tufted wilton.  Fantastic.

I am for anything that makes DIY less of a chore.  If you have the means, I heartily recommend getting somebody else to do it for you, but if you must DIY, then at least try to get some cool kit out of it.

My decorating collection is not quite complete.  I rather fancy some working lights, that permit one to do a decent job after dark.

I also rather like the idea of one of those paper suits to keep the paint off you.  Although, one person’s ‘disgusting track suit bottoms that you never wear anymore and looked horrible when you bought them what were you thinking?’ is another man’s Painting Pantalons.  And remember, a shirt is never at the end of its useful life until it’s rigid with dried emulsion.