My Hairdryer and I

I couldn’t live without my hairdryer. I take it everywhere I go. My wife gets quite jealous. Partly because of the close bond I have with my hairdryer. Partly because mine cost more than hers.

I tell my wife she has nothing to worry about. It’s not like I keep track of when I first met my current hairdryer. (3rd February, 2018.)

Besides, you cannot be a professional kitchen painter without a hairdryer to touch up.

That came out wrong. Let me rephrase that.

You cannot be a professional kitchen painter without a hairdryer to help speed up paint drying when you need to do touch ups to a kitchen.

Or when you have a paint drying emergency.

You might wonder what constitutes a paint drying emergency. Let me tell you, because I recently had a five-alarm paint drying emergency.

I knew there was a problem as soon as I walked into the kitchen. The colour of the undercoat on the island that had been installed didn’t match the colour of the paint in the tin I had brought with me.

Someone had made a mistake.

That came out wrong. Let me rephrase that. 

Someone else had made a mistake.

I explained to the client that the colour on the island wasn’t the colour she had ordered. In other words, it wasn’t the colour I was supposed to paint it. She was very good about it. In fact, she’d already figured that out herself. But, she said, she’d grown to like the colour of the undercoat. Could I finish the top coat in that colour instead?

Yes, I said. But it would mean getting a fresh tin of paint purposely mixed to match the colour of the undercoat.

That was fine, she replied.

Thing is, you don’t just pop down the local DIY shop to get paint mixed. I don’t, anyway. The only people I trust to do it properly (in fact, the only people I will work with) are the Paint Hub in Carlow. A six-hour round trip away.

It became a very expensive tin of paint. I had to charge an extra day’s pay to drive up to Carlow with one of the drawers from the island so the Paint Hub people could scan the colour and match it. Then there was the cost of the diesel. And the price of the new tin of paint itself. As well as the cost of the tin of paint I’d already brought with me to the job.

The client took this in her stride. She really did like the colour of the undercoat.

Three hours later, I was at the Paint Hub getting the colour matched. Rather than make up a three-litre tin of paint straightaway, the guys made a small amount for me to test on the drawer I brought with me. That meant painting it on the spot and waiting for it to dry.

That’s where the hairdryer came in. It blows more hot air than Donald Trump and Boris Johnson combined. That kind of force meant the test paint dried quickly. To my relief, once dried, the paint sample top coat matched the undercoat perfectly and I had a full tin made up.

I’ve written about this particular tin of paint before. When Alan handed me the tin, he had named it Reeve Blue. A paint colour in my honour.

My hair dryer was ever so proud of me.

The drawer I took with me up to The Paint Hub in Carlow.

To see more of this stunning kitchen, please click here: Co. Cork Kitchen.