Wazza Roof Painter

The Roof That Wazza Painted.

My mate Wazza has alluded several times to an event that took place
when Julie and I lived in Toowoomba, a lovely small city about 2 hours
from Brisbane.

We had bought an old Queenslander house which we renovated over a 2 year period, during this time (1977 I think) Warren came for a visit and being the helpful type that he is he asked if we intended to repaint the corrugated iron roof, when we said yes he immediately offered to do said painting.

So the next morning we visited our friendly hardware store and selected a suitable paint, not being too sure how much paint we would need we brought home three X 1 gallon tins.

Warren was dispatched to the roof with a can of paint and a paint brush while both Julie and I went on with whatever tasks we were involved with at the time.

About 45 minutes later Warren called from the roof, “have you got another can of paint for me,” warning bells started to sound in my mind at this stage as I estimated how much paint he was going to use over the 3 days we had estimated it would take to paint the roof.

Quickly climbing the ladder to survey his work I found he had completed one small section of roof with his gallon of paint, Warren has always denied that he emptied the tin of paint onto the roof and just spread it out a bit with his brush, but I could see no other way to use so much paint on such a small area particularly on a non-porous surface like iron.

There followed some instruction on just how to paint by dipping the brush into the can and spreading the paint onto the roof, (you will recall from a very recent post that I am an experienced house painter) I believe our 3 gallons proved to be sufficient even though the first gallon was used so quickly.

In Warren’s defense I hasten to add that there was never a problem with this roof and especially the section where the paint was VERY thick.

Warren during his visits with us at Toowoomba also claimed the responsibility of pruning a very large Bougainvillea bush that grew on a large trellis at the side of the house, he christened this the “mongrel bush” and was always quite battle scarred by the time he had finished his pruning.

Bougainvillea’s are covered with very sharp curved thorns that have an attraction for hands and arms when they are being attacked by secateurs in the hands of the unwary.

As I have said before Warren has been a good friend over almost 40 years so we have had a few adventures in that time, it would be nice to think that there are a few more still to come.