Cladding

If you could see houses being built around these parts, you probably wouldn't want to spend a night in one. It looks as though they throw them up from mdf which then gets to stand around in the rain a while before being clad in coats of many,though subdued, colours.

Houses are built from timber around here because that's what there is a lot of, but also, and perhaps more importantly, because they fare better in case of earthquake. A lot of planning and money go into earthquake preparedness here.

Ok, so back to the cladding. Now, it's really no-one else's business what colour anyone paints their own house, but hey, I have me this blog, just so that I can diss other people's taste in paint jobbies.

A short while ago, one of the other dog owners told me that a particular firm of decorators were cheaper than others. Very keen on low-pricing the dog walkers are. He pointed out the house they were painting at that time. Far from being subdued, it was more vivid, livid even.

There are certain colours that I think of as food colours, brown and yellow for example. And frankly, what goes in as food, comes out as bodily functions. If Dulux had a shade for the colour that house was being painted, they'd have to call it 'dehydrated urine stream', from their 'bodily function' range.
And who wouldn't want their house to stand out from the crowd thus?

Today, another house was being painted in a vibrant shade. This time, the colour was purple, violet in fact, bright, screaming violet.
Nothing wrong with that, in principal. I'd wear clothing in that colour, food would be...interesting. But for the outside of a house, it, well it shouts.

A couple of weeks back, Kevin was watching one of the TV progs that he watches that I don't. A pair of men were mixing paint colours from donated paints. It was somewhere in the San Francisco area I believe.
People would bring their unwanted paint in, it gets mixed and then it goes out again, free, to anyone who wants it.
And that's my guess. The painters want the same thing as the dog-walkers, they want a bargain and they are painting houses in secondhand paint.
Either that, or they're colour blind.
Doesn't bear thinking about.