This is my old war horse – a hand-me-down ladder, given to me by my Dad in approximately 1984. It’s now seen action in five of my homes and a separate one of David’s from when we were decorating it to sell (the home that is, not the ladder).

I am something of a messy painter. In fact, I could probably win records for the volumes of paint that end up on the floor, the dogs or me. I have a tendency to paint semi-naked to mitigate the effect of paint on clothes – it’s easier to clean me up than to clean up clothes. When I painted David’s house, I did it in pants (as in underwear, not trousers) and an ancient Spurs away shirt (purple – horrible – I bought it in a fit of bonhomie or lust or something between the two when David Ginola joined us!) He had to sellotape newspaper across the front window to protect my modesty because he lived on a busy road!

However messy I am, I’m incredibly pernickety and will be seen for days after I have finished painting going round peering at the walls to make sure my coverage is good enough and I have ‘got’ all of the splashes where bits of ceiling have ended up on the wall, wall on the skirting boards and all vice versa. I go round with an artist’s brush and make sure every last blip is painted over because I know, if I don’t, it will bug me forever. Yes folks, this is something I am truly anal about!

So, the war horse has a number of things about it that modern ladders don’t. It’s stable and sturdy so you don’t feel as though it’s about to buckle underneath you (aluminium ladders are scary). It’s easy to put down and fold up, has a decent ‘lock’ that stops it from collapsing – always a positive when perched on top with a bucket of paint – not that it has ever prevented me from dropping buckets of paint on the floor anyway. It’s also a rainbow of colour because that’s one of my things.

DM and I have been having altercations about colour in the last week or so. He’d have the whole place painted white, with austere black and white photos on the walls. Me? I love to have a riot of colour and each room has a need for a different type of colour depending on its use – it’s a function and mood thing in my view.

This is the bedroom. It’s painted the colour of brightly burning flames. Why? Well, how can you expect to find yourself in the mood for passion if your walls are painted ‘with don’t touch me or I’ll get marked’ white. If you paint your bedroom cold white, then you shouldn’t wonder as to why your loved one always leaps into bed in his/her wincy-ette pyjamas and bedsocks each night with never a second thought for passion. Now when these flames are teamed up with shimmering golds, reds and ambers they will really ‘hit the spot’……I hope anyway! I had to concede to not painting the woodwork gold because if I had done, it may have ended in non-divorce-divorce if you see what I mean. (I still think it would have looked MUCH better than dull old off-white but there you go.)

I’ve just been and bought two big buckets of vintage wine red for the dining room, which I will be starting tomorrow. I don’t think there is any nicer feeling than the intimacy that red gives for dining and of course it has been used traditionally in the dining room for many years. It’s the perfect colour to marry with rich woods (and my beautiful oak table is just right for this), candles and delicious food, to put you and your dinner guests in the right mood for an evening of friendship and indulgence.

We have already agreed an overall scheme for the kitchen, which we are both happy with, though that probably won’t even happen next year at this rate.

To get to a point where we can sit down to Christmas dinner in something other than a rat’s nest means that every spare moment of my time between now and then will need to be used to get the painting finished and the cleaning done. There is so much brick dust still and I’m loathe to clear it up this week because on Saturday there will be about four times as much as we’ve got already.

I am being let loose with a super-dooper macho power tool – an industrial sander, which is going to remove paint and varnish from otherwise pristine floorboards in our dining room, ready to be waxed and polished. Cost £20 instead of a few hundred for a carpet and value priceless in terms of aesthetics. Not sure how I’ll cope with the beastie but I have a power tool fetish so this should satisfy my lust for such things for a good long time to come.

Last year, I was 'shopping my folks!'