Thursday 25 March 2010

Not a Brush Wood Fence

I made a discovery the other day: you really do have to finish cleaning up before winter comes.

Last year I was painting shutters, and I was very disciplined (or so I thought) about cleaning my brushes. Every day I would clean them in white spirit, then wash them in soapy water, dry them, then leave them to air. This meant that when I started painting the next day my brushes were in order.

Imagine my surprise, then, when even before I started painting this year I discovered a jar full of white spirit with 3 paint brushes in it. I had obviously been distracted in about October, because they had been sitting there in the back of the garage gently soaking away all winter. Being frozen in white spirit does strange things to paint brushes - the residual paint was harder than the rubber handles.

I have managed to clean them, and hanging them up in fresh air seems to have cured the sponginess of the rubber coating of the handle. They do still feel a bit odd, and I fear they will shed bristles hand over fist, but they are now clean.

It is a lesson I hope to learn though - clean up before it startes snowing!

Today Leon and Sue are paying us a visit (or maybe they are paying Célestine a visit and popping in to see us while they are in the area). We have met quite a few people through the blog, and shared some good meals and fun times. I don't know if that is what the interwebs were invented for or if it is the law of unintended consequences at work, but we rather enjoy it.

Simon

1 comment:

Jean said...

You deserve a medal for cleaning them up after all this time. I would have written them off, I think.

Post a Comment