Friday, October 03, 2008

Don't you just love it ...

... when something goes wrong, and then in the end turns out to be absolutely right?

Yesterday I went to collect two of my mother-in-law's paintings which I had decided to have framed. I had opted for ready-made frames, with added mounts, and for changing the ordinary glass to special protective glass to prevent fading. [The framer was astonished at how good the pictures looked 100 years after painting! "They must have been somewhere with little light" he said, and I replied "They were, they were shut up in a box!"]

I had chosen the size of frame without difficulty, but wanted the gold version, and not the natural wood one's they had in stock in the size I wanted. I was told the gold could be ordered and that was what was agreed - or so I thought.

Strangely enough, on the way there, I began to wonder if the gold had been the right choice, but "Too late now" I told myself. When the pictures were put in front of me, lo and behold, they were framed in the plain wood. A lengthy discussion began as to why they were not framed in gold, and my case eventually fell apart as I saw that 'plain wood' had been written on the invoice, which I had clearly not checked carefully enough before leaving the shop.

To clinch his argument, the framer went and got another frame in the gold, and held it beside the pictures in the plain wood. I knew instantly that I should have hated the gold frames! So although in arguing his case he recalled conversations which I don't believe we ever had, I have to acknowledge that aesthetically he was right, and I end up happy with my newly framed pictures!




3 comments:

Julie Oakley said...

They're really beautiful paintings. And it's amazing how much better an old painting can look when it's put in a new clean mount and frame.

Lee said...

Looks good in wood.

Avus said...

Yup! Definitely the wood for me.