A paint job

It is traditional in this area to paint the stone windowsills of the houses. I'm not really sure why, or whether they would have been painted when they were first built in Victorian times. Many times you see the sills and also the inside edges of the walls surrounding the window are painted white, which I can understand as it reflects a little more light into the room. Some have sills painted in brighter colours to match the front door and some in black.

My own house has white sills but over the years the paint had flaked, cracked and generally become very shabby. It's not a job I could do myself as I'm not keen on ladders but it was one of those jobs I kept thinking I should get done...  and never took action on. Then, the other day as I returned home, I noticed decorators were painting my neighbour's sills. I realised this was the chance I'd been waiting for and requested a quote for doing mine. It seemed a reasonable price so I asked them to do it. They sanded and wire-brushed the old, flaky paint and painted the sills there and then, flitting backwards and forwards between my house and my neighbour's as they added coats of paint and waited for them to dry. My house certainly looks smarter now.  Lovely when something just works out easy like that!

I haven't gone as far as this householder and added decorative elements but I did think these pretty blue and white pottery jugs were a lovely touch.