An American in Provence

I went back to Leroi Merlin on Thursday during my lunch break, determined to buy the tiles for the toilet (to cover the frame that the seat with sit on) as well as paint for the toilet room, two bedrooms, and the hallway. On Wednesday I had bought these three samples of blue-grey tiles (light, medium, and dark) to get Alain's opinion. Turns out that instead of scheduling our retoileting for some Friday in the future, they decided that this Friday would do.




I think it must be an excellent selling strategy. A client puts a downpayment for half of the work. You go out and buy all of the materials, thereby ensuring that they will then commit to having you do all of the work. Then you just fix a date, without waiting for them to dillydally around and change their mind.




So Alain and I had to decide and quick. We picked the lightest of the blues, and so I went and bought a box of tiles (about 2 meters squared) for 20 euros, then went over to the paint section. When I had looked on Wednesday, I had seen that there were some 2.5 liter pots approximately the same color, for about 45 euros each. Since we had calculated that we would need 8 pots, it was going to be expensive. I asked the guy in charge of the paint section, just to get his advice. Turns out, it was cheaper to have them mix the exact color and type of paint I wanted (double layers, able to be sprayed by paint spray gun, matte) than it would be to buy the pre-mixed. I thought the custom color would be much more expensive, but no. I was able to get two pots of 10 L for about 50€ each. What a deal! Came home and Alain lugged it into apartment. Ready for Day 2.