What I Wish I’d Known Before Painting a Room for the First Time

No one warns you about the courage required to paint a room initially. You’re standing there, roller in your hand, with a shade you’ve considered for weeks, and the sense you’re about to either really improve your house, or mess it up badly.

I messed mine up. Not for good – but sufficiently so that a few days afterwards I was on the phone to a decorator, hearing him say, in a voice I’ll never forget: “Er, you didn’t get the walls ready for painting, did you?”

He was correct. I hadn’t. And I hadn’t even realised that was something you had to do.

That was the living room. It bubbled and flaked within days. And it showed me more about painting a room than any guide I’d ever read – because it showed me by the distinct shame