I’ve always thought the biggest danger to interior walls comes from, well, accidents. People like me trying to put up shelves, or spilling a glass of wine when England score a penalty. Not a bit of it. It’s children. They make you and me look like amateurs. And London kids […]
If I pick a horse in the Grand National it’s the one with the funniest name. It’s hard not to use the same method for picking paint colours. Paint companies secretly employ teams of captive poets to come up with those names, which explains why poetry as an art form has become very rare. […]
When I was just a lad, I convinced my Dad to let me decorate my own room. Today, as my bank account waves farewell to yet another mortgage payment, I spare my Dad a thought as I think what the orange wallpaper and purple paint did to the value of […]
The words of Franz Liebekind in Mel Brook’s The Producers: “Churchill! With his cigars. With his brandy. And his rotten painting, rotten! Hitler – there was a painter! He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon! Two Coats!” It’s my great pleasure to walk in the footsteps of many […]
Ready for Christmas? Me neither. But I’m getting my retaliation in first with a choice selection of topical commentary and searching questions. For example, what does Sports Direct give its staff for Christmas dinner? About 5 minutes. The office Christmas party - a great opportunity to catch up with people you haven’t seen […]
2017 is soon going to be soooo last year. Like a confidential Government memo, word has somehow leaked out that GD Parvin is the decorator to have, and we’re booked solid from now to Christmas. But if you’re thinking about having some decorating work done, despair ye not. Our estimating elf […]
I was pleased to see a story in the Daily Telegraph comparing various home improvements, and estimating the added value each of them puts on your property. Yes, it’s official – decorating is one of the most cost-efficient ways of adding property value. The online tool takes your property value, […]
If you ever lie awake at night worrying that the paint on the ceiling might fall on you – this is for you. Why does the paint stick to the wall in the first place? One place I never had any trouble sleeping was in chemistry lessons at school, but […]
Dulux have had a tablet or phone-based colour-picking app, aimed at home users, for some time. It’s quite handy – some people love it, others find it a bit gimmicky – but it does tend to make you think about diffferent colour combinations. Now they have a comparable app for […]
With Wimbledon just down the road from our offices, and the best summer since – well, since last year – it can be hard to stay tuned in to work. Thankfully, the weather is perfect for exterior painting and you, dear customer, are keeping us busy. And so you should […]
Choice of colour is – excuse me – something of a grey area. We’ve all been told for years that we have to paint our houses in neutral colours if we ever want to sell them. But some new research seems to suggest that we’ve all been repressing the urge […]
Regular readers will know that my newsletters are always strictly on-message and never stray from the business of painting and decorating. Well, hardly ever. So, as the Spring-cleaning season opens, some TIMELY and RELEVANT words on care of paintwork and walls. Where possible, we hope you’ll avoid the use of power-tools […]
Maybe it’s genetic, but with the first rays of sun and green shoots starting to peek through, even your humble decorator is starting to think of spring-cleaning. I thought some tips on handling paintwork might not be amiss. You most likely have some form of emulsion paint on your walls. […]
A brave daffodil in my garden has just started to put shoots up. Of course, that makes me think it must be spring, and now I will probably forget to wear a jacket and catch my death of cold. But it did occur to me that this is a very good […]
This story is probably not true, but it’s so good that it ought to be, and I think I will go ahead and believe it anyway. And it came from a respectable newspaper. The word quiz, according to an article by the Guardian’s cricket correspondent, was invented on a bet: […]
A while ago I discovered that oikodomophobia is a new and terrible disease, the fear of having oiks come round to your house and make a mess of it. It often leads to a farpotshket decorating job (farpotshket – a yiddish word meaning “broken because someone tried to fix it”). So […]
People who value my opinion – yes, both of them – sometimes want to know what’s the best way to prepare for the decorators. Apart from leaving the country, I tell them, there are some sensible things to bear in mind. We’ll assume that you already know what paint you […]
The great comedian Tommy Cooper once said: “I painted my wife in oils. Now she looks like a sardine”. But that’s not why I’m writing to you. The clever people at Dulux have come up with a new version of their Tablet app to see how your room would look […]
We are currently putting finishing touches to a project on West Hill in Wandsworth. The property is a substantial Georgian mansion, tastefully converted into nine well-sized flats as well as a converted stables building, a gate house, and an adjoining Orangery. It may well have been originally built as a country […]
If you’re not so much of a big kid as I am, then I apologise in advance for what follows. But the fact is I love London. I’ve been painting and decorating all over the city from our Putney offices since 1997, and I continually find out wonderful facts about the place. […]