DIY is Shit

Why Only Morons Like Painting (Walls)

And why I loathe it in all its forms

I’m the caretaker/groundsman for an estate in Normandy. It used to be a farm, but they shut it down.

So most of the time I piss around mowing lawns and weeding flower beds that don’t have any flowers in them.

This summer, the owner is renovating the old cottages to rent out next year to tourists. This is where I come in.

‘Hey Phil,’ he said to me a few weeks ago. ‘Do you want to earn a few extra quid, you know, off the books?’

‘As in cash?’ I asked in my loud English voice in French — En espèce?

The owner hushed me up. ‘Yes, but don’t advertise it. The IRS could be anywhere.’

I say IRS, but as I live in France, I’m talking about the Direction Generale des Finances Publiques, commonly known as the tax turds, who have more power than Putin. If you don’t pay your tax in France, they’ll just take it from your bank. Or invade your country.

If you ever move to France, pay your tax, or it’s Les Jeux Sont Faits. Which, if you’re old enough to remember, is what Principal Rooney says in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as he confronts the girl in the arcade that he thinks is Ferris Bueller but isn’t, and says: ‘Les Jeux Sont Faits. Translation: YOUR ASS IS MINE.’

Brilliant comedy, but not if the Direction Generale des Finances Publiques fucks you in the ass.

So anyway, the owner offers me a grand IN CASH to paint the cottage. I accept the offer, to which my wife immediately asks.

‘Why did you do that? You hate painting.’

This is true. Every time I’ve accepted this work, I regret it. As soon as I pick up the brush, a thin snakelike sliver of paint jumps off it and lands on the floor. Right in between the bit where there’s no dust sheet.

The agony of painting, and I haven’t even applied a stroke of paint yet. And this is after spending the entire previous day cleaning and preparing the walls that were full of shit, grit and cobwebs. Already my €1000 job is going on for longer than I expected.

I begin painting, and this is only the undercoat that is going on as thinly as semen squirted up the wall. Not that I’ve ever tried this, but I can imagine how it might look.

Initially, the owner said he wanted one coat — of paint — but then decided on two, after we’d agreed on the price. Then he settled on three, and the job I thought was going to take a week, is going to take three.

The thing with painting is, it’s so fiddly. So many elements to the job, and it drives me nuts. Clean all the crap off the walls — dead skin, nicotine, food, semen (maybe) — then fill in all the holes from the screws or nails people have used to hang pictures of their stupid family on.

Then you’ve got to tape up the bits that don’t need painting, like the glass. Cover the floors, and yourself. Organize ladders and paint pots and rags to wipe the paint up with. And when you’ve finished for the day, wash all the paint-caked brushes up.

It’s probably not a big deal to a lot of people. But it’s not my type of work. I’m a mower guy. I get the lawnmower out, start mowing and can go all day. Perfect lines, perfect symmetry. This is what it’s like when I mow.

This is what it’s like when I paint.

Some psychologist would probably have an explanation for this. A guy who can mindlessly mow a meadow for hours on end, but has trouble painting a wall. Didn’t he have access to paints as a kid, or did he simply spend his days on the football field? Some dumb sports jock who hasn’t got a creative bone in his Nacho and Budweiser-soaked body.

This isn’t far from the truth.

I can’t actually remember painting that much as a kid — if ever — but I spent a lot of time on the sports field. More cross-country than football, but I saw a lot of grass.

It’s now the third Saturday since I started, and it’s taken me three weeks. My €1000 is now, in effect, worthless, as I’ve turned down other work to finish the job.

It’s been a battle I can assure you. Not to mention the fact that the radio insisted on playing shit music for the whole three weeks. Every station I tuned in to seemed to be playing Ed Sheeran.

In the end, I went to my default channel and stuck on Classic FM. You can’t go wrong with Mozart and Beethoven. Especially Symphony №9, during which you can work up a real sweat. As well as getting a shitload of paint on the floor.

So that’s me, done.

‘Never again,’ I said to my wife as I dragged myself back into the house covered in so much paint I looked like a snowman. ‘If anyone ever asks me to paint a house again, please shoot me before I say yes.’

She nods and smiles as she picks up the rifle. ‘It’s funny that, because I was about to ask you whether you wanted to paint our house.’

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