hey habitat

From Habitat magazine - issue 07

Stories from you.

From John:

I thought I’d just drop you a line and tell you a story you’ll like. Last week, I spent around $500 and three days painting our front fence at the front of our house. My neighbour said: “Mate, it’s looking pretty good. I reckon you’ll be in for some graffiti”. With that, I went back to Resene in Wairau Park and bought some of your magic Resene Uracryl. To cut a long story short, I woke up this morning to find graffiti all over my fence in bright green paint. They’d also got my neighbour’s down the road. I had great pleasure in simply cleaning mine off using Resene Graffitti Cleaner and I have to tell you it looks brand new. Cheers and thank you.

From Tracy:

My husband and I have recently worked on two projects in our home, which have been very successful and have cost very little.

The first, the fireplace, was achieved using Resene Sandtex. When we moved into our home, the fireplace was cute enough, but the blue and cream tiles looked out of place. I decided that it would be easy to paint over the tiles. My husband made the mistake of telling me it was impossible, which for me always creates a great challenge!

The local Resene staff assured me that I could give our fireplace a makeover with the help of some Resene Waterborne Smooth Surface Sealer. Once the tiles had been sealed, I filled in the gaps between them as best I could, then I bought a testpot of Resene Sandtex in Resene Armadillo. I ‘blobbed’ the paint on using a medium-sized paintbrush, and am so thrilled with the effect. Everyone who visits thinks we’ve had it plastered.

The second project was the kitchen floor. When we moved into the house, there was a patch under and around the oven, where the coal range had obviously once stood. The surface was an uneven mixture of plaster and rough stone. The rest of the kitchen floor was wooden floorboards.

Our initial plan was to tile the floor, but the expense and the time involved for the floor to cure was off-putting. As we have a gas oven, it’s out of action when we move it, and the prospect of being without an oven for a week or more was not a good one!

We then got a quote to have the floorboards matched with demolition timber. I’m sure the nice man who came to see us would have done a fabulous job, but I baulk at spending more than $5000 on what is basically a very small patch of floor. And again, the time and the inconvenience, not to mention the dust, ensured that we kept putting the job off... and off.

In the end, we employed a lovely student to chip the floor area in question to a level surface, and then my husband got a piece of hardboard cut to fit. As it happened, the hardboard fitted so well, we decided to take a punt on painting it to match the surrounding wooden floorboards.

My husband and I both have artistic streaks, so hey – nothing ventured, nothing gained. We colour-matched the wood, again using Resene testpots: Chelsea Gem, Hairy Heath, Fahrenheit and Wood Bark. Add a bit of Vivid marker for nail holes, and varnish, and the rest is history.

All in all, these two projects probably cost us under $200. We could easily have spent way more than $5000 achieving similar results, but we wouldn’t have had so much fun!

Want to get your own free copy of future issues of habitat magazine?

Printed copies of habitat highlights are available from late March 2024 at Resene ColorShops and resellers, while stocks last. You can view back issues of habitat magazine online.

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