REDECORATING IN THE LATE THIRTIES
Even though money was tight in the thirties, when it came to doing any interior painting the families that I knew hired a painter. I guess it was before the "do it yourself era."

When it came time to put on a fresh coat of paint my parents engaged a "paintner." That's correct, my parents called the man "paintner."

He came, looked the place over and quoted a price for his labor and the paint. Once that was agreed upon the next big thing was to chose the color of the paint. I was included in that decision making.


Yellow Kitchen Dec 07 by lindabutterfly, on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA

The kitchen was going to be yellow with green accents. The bathroom was to be painted green.

The day the "paintner" came I went off to school and when I returned he was gone, the job was done. The kitchen was yellow with green accents. The bathroom was a hideous PINK!! (I still remember that awful color)

Ma, "What happened?" - The "paintner ran out of GREEN paint." And that's how it remained until the next paint job.

The same "paintner" had a job in the upstairs apartment. The job was the same as what we had done - the kitchen and the bathroom. There was one exception.

In those days you could not replace a toilet seat with a new one. As I'm typing this it just occurred to me that maybe you could, but the people could not afford to buy a new one so "the paintner" would put a fresh coat of paint on the seat!


"The Squishy-Seated Toilet (Pink) by Vicious Bits, on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA

Well, the girl who lived in that apartment went to work that day, came home in the evening and not knowing exactly what was done, went to the bathroom and sat down on that freshly painted toilet seat!!!

That "paintner" surprised us with "Pink" and turned her face "Red."

posted by millie garfield @ 5:19 PM | Permalink | I LOVE COMMENTS >>