There’s the old adage that if you want to do a job well, get the right tools. This is something that many an amateur decorator of old would have scoffed at. Many a job has been carried out with a second rate tool box and the results of variable quality to match. But back in the day, there was very little money about to go buying the best of everything. In fact there were very few decorating stores – you went down the high street to the hardware shop that sold everything, including paints, white spirit, brushes etc. It wasn’t usually a case of you asking for a specific make of brush, just the size you wanted. The paint, in the days before mass multi colour manufacture, would have been bottle green, sludge brown, cream or white. Ahh I well remember the smell of the gloss paintwork. A very leaden whiff there was too and of course the cleaning up of the paint brushes with white spirit or similar. Oh how that smell could linger!
