Friday 7 October 2011

a green fling lesson: patience : follow-up

Wouldn't you know it - 5 minutes after I blogged, facebooked and tweeted about my waning patience for eco-custom-mixed-paint I received a phone call from the fine folks at Eco at Home telling me my paint was ready to pick up.  Insert sheepish feelings here (and gratitude to the universe!).

So last Saturday morning I hightailed it over to Willoughby to pick up my paint so that I could spend the long-weekend refinishing my dresser.

The lovely man who had taken great care to create my dream eco-paint colour told me to brace myself for the bright colour I was about to see - I was so excited to see the beautiful blue!  It was probably more duck-egg than peacock, but still as vibrant as I'd wanted.  I picked up a paintbrush and stir-stick, and he provided me an instruction sheet (printed on beautiful brown recycled paper) for how to use my BioPaint.  I've used it before, and love that I can just rinse everything with soap and water, no paint-thinner required.



As he apologised for the delay he explained he had a 'painterly' week, spending the bulk of his time mixing custom-paints for a number of clients.  My hubby was with me and asked if it's the painters or designers who recommend green paint or if it's client-driven, and he explained demand is predominantly client-driven.  He said there are "a handful of architects out there who will specify eco-paints" but 99% of the requests are from the client.

He recounted an encounter he had the day before with a young painter who had come to the shop a couple times throughout the week. When he came in Friday to pick up a final can of paint he said:

"This is the first Friday I've ever worked that I didn't wake up feeling really sick."

To which the Eco at Home paint guru replied:

"Well, you don't really see any old painters around, do you?  It's too hard on your body to do this job for long, breathing in fumes from synthetic paints."

During the week the Eco at Home paint guru had also given a talk at the Greenpainters Association where he started the discussion by writing down a long list of health problems associated with VOCs including: brain and central nervous system damage, lung disease, skin disease and reproductive disorders.

There's really nothing else to say, is there?  Please take care of yourselves when you catch that renovation bug and use low-VOC, plant-based paints.  You'll be amazed at the difference in how you feel and at the similarity of the end result.

Now, what you've been waiting for - the big reveal of my final product.


I'm really happy with my bright new dresser!

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