I read a scary fact a while ago: people who have a gas stove in their home are likely to die on average two years earlier than those who cook electric.
Well, I’ve always considered gas miles ahead when it comes to stove top cooking. You can’t beat that instant heat and controllability, although it’s true it’s not so good on a low simmer.
Like many factoids, it’s light on detail, and I’m sure there’s a gross abuse of statistics in there somewhere, but the facts don’t lie: somewhere in my cooker is something that is bad for me, whether it’s poisoning me slowly or increasing the risk of my house burning down. Luckily Simon has done most of the cooking for the family over the years, and he’s very cynical about these sort of context free factlets, so there’s no question of pulling out our expensive oven (you could call it top of the range – boom boom!). However, I’ve been very careful to turn the extractor fans on high whenever I’ve been indulging in whatever culinary adventures I’ve been getting up to recently, mostly boiling water TBH.
However, there was one potential source of risk that I could easily address: the open gas fire in the TV room. I’ve never liked it, and it’s a bugger to start, being very finickety and needing multiple goes pressing the ignition button whenever you try to light it. So, I decided to replace it with a more modern enclosed fireplace. The quote to upgrade it was so outrageous that I said yes without discussing it with Simon, as he would only have tried to talk me out of it using dirty tricks like facts and clever logic.
As with virtually any home improvement project we’ve been involved with over the years, it hasn’t gone straightforwardly. When the installation chappie came to me with a frown and shaking his head, my heart sank. “Can I just show you something?” is never a good thing to hear.
In the gaping space where the old heater used to be there were some rotting planks of wood. A different tradie was organised to come in, unfortunately away at present on holiday (outrageous!) so everyone just packed up and left.
Well, weeks have gone by, the new heater is in situ and is working well.
I’ve paid the original bill, but nothing for the extra work yet, as they’d like to know if we’d like them to paint the wall? And if so, do we have a record of the paint previously used, or have some left in a pot somewhere? No, I’m afraid we don’t, but can’t you just match what’s there? It’s just some generic white/cream colour, it can’t be too hard to match can it? Anyone who has done any painting knows where this story is going. No, we have to tell them the colour we want. So, I went to the hardware store today to grab some colour charts. Well, from only one brand I’ve ended up with seven different charts, each with 12 white and neutral colours that I thought would have the colour I wanted.
I’m sure I’ve talked about the process of finding colours before, but it still astounds me how many versions of white there are.
Spanish white, rice cake, biscotti, alabaster, Thorndon cream, Carrara, merino, Blanc, and that old favourite, pearl lusta. And then there are doubles and various fractions of all those. It’s mind boggling. So far I’m tossing up between half black white and sea fog. I must confess I’m leaning towards the latter just for the name.
I thought initially, as one does in this day and age, that surely there’d be an app for that. Well, there are apps, but they cost an arm and a leg, and even on the free trial, they’re underwhelming. You think a room is white but because you’re indoors and the light isn’t perfect, everything looks to your phone like shades of grey. I guess objectively that is the colour we’re seeing too but our minds are capable of converting it in a way our phones can’t. Yet.