Someone's got the decorators in

I don't know whether I mentioned this before, but Big Bro bought himself a flat a while back. This is exciting because if my experience of getting my own place is anything to go by he'll have a great time, and secondly, I'm utterly fascinated by what Sparky Ma and Pa are going to transform his bedroom into. When I moved out Sparky Pa turned my room into an office (quite startlingly quickly, it must be said), which leaves all sorts of exciting possibilities for Big Bro's former abode.

I'm hoping for a holodeck or a disco room. Or a panic room. Maybe a Panic at the Disco room?

What I remember most about getting Sparky Towers was that I absolutely loved the whole decorating process. As I've said countless times before, the stupid girl who owned Sparky Towers before me must've been either colour blind or, well, blind, because she had appalling taste in colour and decor (and men, according to the neighbours!). Thank God, then, for the fact that I was still living with Ma and Pa at the time because it gave me two months to sweep through the place like some sort of Dulux angel and eradicate all evidence of her mismatched touch.

Sparky Towers midway through its transformation. The red and white were my colour choices, covering forever a horrific wishy-washy shade of light blue. Note also the lilac in the porch. Outrageous. That was obliterated in an evening. Promotional consideration supplied by Evian Natural Mineral Water: Live young, live Evian.

Big Bro's place, however, is a new build, which means that it's fully decorated in neutral, inoffensive tones. When he put his offer in I actually got a little bit giddy at the prospect of breaking out my rollers and brushes and working my painty magic through another property, but he shot my dreams down pretty quickly by saying that he was happy with the existing colour scheme and wasn't planning on changing it.

But then last week he texted me to say he'd decided a splash of colour wouldn't go amiss in his bedroom. This made me clap like a speshul and bounce up and down in my chair a bit, even if the way he phrased his text did make it sound a bit like I should be honoured to have been asked. A day later, though, he changed his mind. Again. I came to the conclusion that Big Bro was just a tease, and was trying to generate as many peaks and troughs in my emotional state graph as he could.

I was not happy.

Until he changed his mind again.

So Sunday afternoon I found myself standing in his bedroom wearing the same old paint spattered clothes I'd worn when I decorated Sparky Towers four and a half years ago; fortunately, they're quite dark, so don't show up the red paint too much. This is good because otherwise they do kind of make it look like I'm Dexter or something.

Everyone's favourite happy murderer (he'll want to pop some Vanish on those blood stains - they'll come right out).

My initial thought when Big Bro put me in charge of the big roller was that he must've been well impressed with my decorating skills at Sparky Towers, but in hindsight what it actually meant was that I did most of the monkey work while he did the delicate little corner bits like a proper 'artiste.' And at one point he buggered off to buy some more paint, leaving me to effectively do three entire walls and the complex bits around plugs on my own. He'll find this amusing until I put an invoice in; I'm not as cheap as I look.

The colour he picked was some sort of light green, which sounds a bit disgusting but actually looks rather nice when it's on the wall and dry, and will no doubt conceal any bogeys he might decide to stick there. My overly vigorous roller-action meant that a rather unhealthy amount of paint sprayed back on to me (hence the need for a second tin), effectively pebble-dashing my arms and face. I ended the afternoon looking a bit like a Suliban from Star Trek: Enterprise, albeit without the ability to slip under doors or turn my head around completely.

No doubt I'll be picking paint out of my nose for days to come.

Naturally I did a sterling job, and was rewarded for my efforts with … a can of coke. There's nothing like settling down after a job well done, but seeing as Big Bro hasn't got any chairs yet, I made do with the floor instead.

Seriously, I will hunt down and thump the first person who makes a sarcastic comment about why I have a white stain on my leg.