One of the (many) things we discovered when we cleared under our bed as we emptied our bedroom to redecorate was a stack of old pictures that we'd never hung in our house, for whatever reason. But looking at them again years later there was one that could be hung in our top bedroom, but it needed some work first as the reddy-wood frame didn't match the room.
So armed with a pot of paint, some newspaper and some cardboard I set about changing that one afternoon. As I dismantled the picture a scrap of Jim Carrey Ace Ventura notepaper flew out but more on that later, left only with the wooden frame I set up my impromptu painting workbench in the conservatory. Before painting though I wiped the frame so that it was clean - and found that one of those furniture wet wipes did just the job.
I used eggshell paint similar to Farrow and Ball's Skimming Stone colour as I wanted to tone down the redness of the wood. I decided to go with a solid colour, rather than a paint wash mainly because it looked much better that way. The cardboard from a recent online shopping delivery came in handy to rest the painted frame on so it wasn't in contact with the newspaper.
After the second coat was dry I was ready to reframe the picture, which I'd bought during a long stopover at Singapore airport in the late 1990s as I travelled back from a trip to Australia.
The Jim Carrey Ace Ventura slip of paper that fluttered out explains the picture which is supposed to be my name - Stephanie. I hope it is my name and not something rude or offensive and I discover after all these years that I've been had!
Anyway the symbols and their meanings according to Jim Carrey are:
- Birds: happiness
- Bamboo: progress
- Butterfly: blessings
- Fish: wealth
- Flower: success
Which all make for a very pretty and colourful picture, which looks great in its new frame.
And we've even got it on the wall in the top bedroom, between the elephant picture we brought back from India and the salmon picture from Canada. The frames are fixed top and bottom as they're on a sloping wall as this room is in our roof where more normal straight walls are a rarity!
I'm quite pleased with my impromptu painting session, and the addition to the travel pictures in this room. And it's another job I can tick off my list!