The Ugly Stage…

We are indebted to our former Todi friend Meg Roberts for introducing us to the art of decorative painting and for encouraging us to try our own hand at it while in the throes, a few years ago, of renovating our Umbrian palazzo.

Meg is a true pro, dividing her time between incredibly interesting commissions in Italy - Tuscan villas, grand Florentine palaces, cozy Umbrian farmhouses – and notable assignments in fab places like Paris, London, New York, Cape Cod, etc.

Meg was working feverishly in Todi for multiple patrons but managed to find time for us, showing us how she mixes paints, what she applies as backgrounds, how she makes new painting schemes seem like they’ve been there for ages. She even brought us paintbrushes one night and coaxed us both to paint freehand on large sheets of brown paper. We weren’t very successful at first but she urged us to practice – and I believe we did improve over time.

Because of Meg’s encouragement, we converted drab and nearly colorless rooms into a facsimile of a handsome Italian middleclass townhouse, restoring the palazzo Berti-Marini into a warm and comfortable environment. Most importantly, we enjoyed the work and are proud of our accomplishment.

Meg also introduced us to what she termed ‘the ugly stage’ – that moment when, upon critically surveying a painting project you’ve begun, you lose heart and just want to quit - maybe take a huge bucket of whitewash and throw paint over walls, ceilings, floors. And then fix yourself a good strong drink in order to forget the whole thing.

Meg’s solution for the ‘ugly stage’ is to slog on, regardless of negative feelings.  ‘Finish the work,’ she exhorts. ‘After you're done, if you still think its wrong, paint it over and start again. After all, it’s only paint!’, she laughs. And she’s right; it is only paint – and we were both aghast one evening in Todi when she put her advice in action by climbing atop our scaffold and blotting out a border design we’d been laboring on for two days. ‘Sorry dears,’ she explained, ‘but what you did had to go. You can do better – and you’ll just have to now!’

I mention ‘the ugly stage’ at this moment because I fear both Francesco and I feel that La Placette Haute is a bit of an ugly duckling – especially as we’ve had endless rain and both houses are surrounded by patches of mud, scarred with tire tracks, and there is a sizable lagoon in our front yard. (Arcadio won’t even venture out, preferring to laze indoors on top of a radiator instead of wetting his paws.)

Winter is not a good season for renovation work, and we are both exasperated with the slowness of our contractors. We had no idea, when we began this project six months ago that, by now, we’d only have progressed this far. If Versailles had been built at this glacial pace, the French would still be at it – 350 years on.