Well Hung Husband

For those of us mortal men who are not painters and decorators by profession or trade there should be an annual practical to keep our infrequently used skills up to date.

Wallpapering is a dying art amongst the male population for a number of reasons.

Our wives and partners are of course the decision makers in the household when it comes to the adornment of walls and ceilings. I believe that my missus may be one of the last of her generation to favour wallpaper. It is part of her heritage. Her own father was a prolifically gifted paste and paper hanger as was common to his generation and probably a couple of generations before that.

She spent many an hour in his company whilst he decorated the family home and consequently has an encyclopaedic knowledge of how to tackle every aspect of the task from under his tutorship.

I am extremely nervous and have great feelings of inadequacy when it comes to any form of DIY but especially wallpapering.

My uncertainty and fear starts with the initial  marking out of the room, wall length by wall length to ensure the most practical and efficient way of using the precious supply of expensive printed rolls.

Tradition and good sense dictates a start point in the middle of a wall even if it corresponds to a window opening or a doorway. I am of an age and upbringing that can only think and visualise in just over one dimension and so a right angled reveal or a room corner throws up a great challenge.

These features of a normal room pale into insignificance when faced by a light switch, a power point or any other three dimensional form over which the paste spread paper has to be cajoled, eased and negotiated under the sanction of just getting it completely wrong and having to start all over again on that particular drop.

I have to frequently consult my wife on how to tackle what to me seems like an insurmountable obstacle but may only be positioning and trimming around an architrave.

I am called upon to retrieve the pasting table from the car boot stock pile on average, say every 5 years when a room comes up for a makeover. Some may say that decorating is like leaning to ride a bike in that once you know how to do it, you never forget how to do it.

My personal experience is that this is a load of twoddle.

A quinquennial basis for any skill inevitably entails the need to start again from scratch notwithstanding that complete loss of confidence and ability from such a prolonged absence from the front line.

I have done some stupid things.

In a bid to impress my wife, shortly after we were married, I covertly sourced and planned to wallpaper the bedroom and all to be done whilst she was away on her nightshift at work.

I had on my own courageous judgement chosen a nice powder blue paper with delicate flowery pattern which would compliment our existing bedding and décor. The walls of the old house had been lined with one of those thin veneers of polystyrene in order to eke out some thermal efficiency from an otherwise heat porous solid brick external wall. I decided that stripping it off would be a major exercise and not achievable within my timescale or skill set.

The new paper was duly dipped and soaked in a water tray as I had researched in the information leaflets available from the DIY Megastore. I had not actually purchased that pre-pasted type of wallpaper before but the method, again, would suit my timescale to surprise and thrill my hard working wife.

In no time at all the room was completed and apart from a few bright white stripes where the polystyrene was visible at  poorly aligned jointed seams I felt it looked presentable, even a bit stylish and cosy.

My wife returned from work at 7am after a tiring 12 hour shift.

In the few moments of consciousness before she fell asleep in the newly spruced up boudoir she seemed very pleased with my efforts.

As I said, I had not actually purchased that pre-pasted type of wallpaper before. What was closer to the actual truth was that I had not at all purchased any paper which was pre-pasted.

My misconception of the product had meant that a normal pastable paper had just been wetted a bit and was only held vertically by a bit of moisture induced friction between paper and polystyrene.

In a nightmarish situation the decorations progressively, in the order of their hanging, peeled themselves away and my wife awoke, about mid afternoon in completely white walled surroundings that were confusing and disturbing in equal amount.

In spite of this major disaster I was, some 5 years or so later, asked by my wife to have another go. We had moved house in the intervening years, in fact we had relocated to another County altogether as though I had been enrolled in a protection programme for the ridiculously incompetent.