Mumsnet users share their child’s messiest moments with Farrow & Ball

[LucyBMumsnet]

This sponsored discussion is now closed

We may have gradually adapted to spending more time at home this year, but that doesn’t mean it’s been easy. With children around, more time indoors can often mean more opportunity for mess-making, whether over-adventurous colouring, teatime catastrophes, or grubby mitts. Farrow & Ball’s durable Modern Emulsion paint is washable and wipeable, so to celebrate all eventualities, they would like to hear the story of the biggest mess your child has ever made.

Here’s what Farrow & Ball has to say: “Our homes have become office, crèche, and schoolroom as well as space for your family. Couple that with the fact that most of us have been looking at the same walls for months on end, noticing every mark, or wanting to introduce a change, and you have a great opportunity for a fresh lick of paint.

Modern Emulsion is a great choice for any space because it’s washable, wipeable, and tough enough to withstand those everyday scuffs and scrapes from things like scooters and shoes. It’s also eco-friendly, child-safe, and available in any Farrow & Ball colour you choose.”

What has been your child’s messiest moment? Do you have a budding Picasso who simply can’t resist the allure of a blank wall? Perhaps your children weren’t even the culprits: are your four-legged friends responsible for muddy marks and wet splodges along the wall? How do you tackle the clean-up?

No matter what kind of creative punishments your home has been subject to, we’d like to hear your stories. All who share on the thread below will be entered into a prize draw. The winner of the prize draw will receive a £100 voucher for a store of their choice (from a list), a virtual Farrow & Ball colour consultancy, and 10L of Modern Emulsion paint in a colour of their choice. Two runners-up will each win 5L of Modern Emulsion paint in a colour of their choice.

Thanks, and good luck!
MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

[pushchairprincess]

Beetroot juice ! I had a beetroot juice smoothie in the fridge, DD1 decided she wanted to try it (thinking it tasted nicer than it looked) - I made her jump with the Noooooooo ! far to loud - and all over the dining room floor it went ---- took a visit to the supermarket and a rug doctor to remove the stain

[DillieDoily]

An unfortunate crafting afternoon when fabric paint somehow got all ove my daughters feet then she trekked through the entire house, including on my brand new cream carpet!

[sjonlegs]

My little girl has always been a lover of drawing ... usually on herself, or other people and furniture. I'm surprised I didn't twig when, said 'very artistic' daughter suddenly took to moving her furniture round a few years ago .. it wasn't until recently when we've been redecorating that we found a whole host of little squiggles and doodles in a number of different places! Fortunately these days she's much improved, talented even, .... and tends to use paper or canvas!

[JaneyJimplin]

My youngest LOVES being -messy- creative with paint and using any blank space as a canvas! This was an old cardboard box that our new fridge came in. He created this masterpiece using his hands, feet, sticks, and stones.

[ClaraSais]

My son - enough said

[Dogwalks2]

Newly decorated hallway, my husband decided to use it as a gloop run for the kids Halloween party.
This consisted of kids running from the front door down the long hallway carrying green gloop from one witch cauldron in their hands to fill up another cauldron in the kitchen, all fun and games until we started to clean up once all the lovely children had gone home. My beautiful hallway was covered in slime green gloop that you couldn’t clean. Ended up at great expense wood panelling the bottom half to hide the child height mess.
Can still see a few rogue marks now but as it was 15 years ago I smile at the memories of the great Halloween parties we used to put on for the kids.

[RafflesMaidenSister]

Three year old is, and has been for some time, a picker, poker and wiper. In our old house which was waiting for replastering he managed to remove a roughly three foot area of the old plaster right down to the stonework beneath.

In the current house - which was new and had been very poorly painted he has picked leaving small holes right down to the plasterboard on the stairs, has wiped food, snot and poo on his bedroom walls (which when wiped quickly lose all their paint) and has topped it all off by painting green horses (they don't look like horses but I'm told they are) on our skirting boards, which tbf were removed rather successfully.

[Yummamama22]

We used to live in a rented house with a very long hall. My then 3 year old son decided it would be great fun to walk down the hall running a crayon along the entire 30ft of hall wall to decorate it and so ‘he couldn’t get lost’...He also felt it necessary to add green felt tip pen marks to every other brick on the period brick fireplace and a small Picasso-style scribble to to our other Portland stone fireplace.. Although he helped me clean the wall, we ended up re-painting it before we left, the Stone fireplace steam cleaned reasonably well but the brick fireplace however will remain forever customised with felt tip!

[Kiki275]

My son helped himself to breakfast. Thankfully he couldn't get the lid off the milk bottle which is just out of shot x

[MakeTeaNotWar]

When my daughter was a toddler, she smeared by very expensive hand cream all over her face and the carpet - the oily stains are still there

[TheExecutionOfAllThings]

My son went outside to play whilst I was cooking on a wet, muddy day. I told him to wait at the back door and I'd remove his wellies and coat before coming in.

Of course he ignored me and wondered straight in the patio doors and sat himself down on the sofa - with a mud trail right across the house and muddy boots stomped all over the sofa

[Buddy32]

My daughter wanted to help decorate her bedroom, not longer after we had moved in to our house.

The walls were painted navy blue so we were doing a few coats of white first as she wanted a pale purple bedroom.

She had helped paint before (she was about 13 and very sensible), and knew what to do. We had taken up the carpet ready for a new one to be fitted, and her new furniture hadn't arrived, so the room was empty. I was planning to gloss the woodwork and freshen up the ceiling.

The phone rang just as we were about to get started - the childminder saying my son had been sick so please collect him. My daughter asked if she could get started whilst I was out. I said of course... what could possibly go wrong!

I returned with my son and my daughter wanted to continue painting whilst I was seeing to him. I left her to it.

I went up a little while later, and found that she had finished painting two walls, and had started on the third. The walls were really glistening in the sun light; the room felt much brighter compared to when it was navy.

Then I looked at the tin she was dipping the brush in and I suddenly realised... she had used the gloss not the emulsion! 🤦‍♀️

[NinaG123]

My son decided early one more he would try and be helpful by mopping the carpeted (not our decor choice!!) bathroom floor with his toy mop, only issue was that he was using his fully potty from the night before as the mop bucket!!!

[jimjack]

We live in a 300 year old cottage and my daughter has picked off of her pretty recently painted wall that had a tiny crack a huge 2 foot square of paint, wall paper and horse hair plaster. Is looks awful, we've just filled it today and hope it's ready for some fresh paint in a few days.... this prize would be so well timed!

[originalusernamefail]

My son has autism and is sensory seeking. A perfect combo for mess stories! Worst upstairs mess was the entire contents of the bathroom (shampoo, shaving cream, bubble bath, clay face mask, toothpaste etc etc) made into beautiful swirly patterns on the walls, windows, carpets, and napping brother ).

Worst downstairs mess, although this is outing was when he fed the washing machine ( his greatest love) 2 1L bottles of washing up liquid and put it on an intensive cycle (see attached - this was after some cleaning but before I had to open the door). After we got wise and locked all cleaning products in the cellar he made do and fed the washer everything in the fridge that was liquid (milk, tomato ketchup, sweet chilli sauce, mayo - not envy). If we win it would be his room that for done up so he would benefit from his crimes!

[Sleepybumble]

I decided to do some baking with DD. So that she could do the tipping and mixing herself I weighed out all the ingredients and left them in bowls. I nipped to the loo while she finished watching a TV programme. When I returned she had attempted to tip all the ingredients into 1 very small bowl and started to mix. Mixing for a 2 year old is more like flicking so in 2 mins unsupervised I had flour buyer and sugar flicked all over the kitchen. I was surprised how far the ingredients went and how long it took to clean it all up.

[Gkeshs3under3]

Left my 2 year old twin boys in the playroom, whilst I helped my daughter get read for school. Came back into the playroom five minutes later, one of the boys had removed his poo filled nappy, rubbed the poo into the rug and smeared in on the white walls. His brother had rubbed the poo into his hair and face, he had also stepped in the poo and ran past me whilst I stood in shock. So I also had poo footprints down the hall. Makes me wanna cry again just thinking about it

[NauticalDisaster]

Whilst I was folding laundry and putting another load in my bery own Picasso was mixing colours and painting the sofa.
“Why did you do it, my little darling?”
“I don’t know.”

[Fingermoose]

After getting into my makeup bag, my then five year old left lipstick kisses all over his walls "because I love my new and newly painted bedroom"

[Snog]

Teen party - lime vodka jelly shots thrown around and weird lime colour stains on the walls....

[thebigyin]

A short poem bout eating a rusk

I'M eating up my biscuit it is very yum

The first time I tasted it and felt it in my tum

The first thought in my head said I want another one

[thebigyin]

This one is about waiting for the Birth of your baby and the time that seems to go too slow and the anxiety of that waiting it is called the empty cot.

The Empty Cot

An empty Cot in an empty room is waiting for the fruit of Womb
All the pain and all the suffering will seem like a computer buffering the tension and anticipation and O the waiting waiting waiting.

But then the Joy and laughter and all the happy ever afters and all the love you burst to give is when the Baby lives. Ben

[thebigyin]

I try to put myself in the position of parents whos baby only lives for a short time. It is something which happens to many people i hope I have done this tragic event justice

I held my baby for a short time

Those precious moments were so sublime
When I looked into her lovely eyes

And I opened my heart and started to cry
I held her for the first and last time

Because doctors had said her health would decline
I felt her inside me for 9 months or more

And when she was born she just opened the door to my emotions which I never thought I would feel

And when she arrived it all became real

My time with my baby was short because she had to go

I had to pour a lifetime of love into Minutes our Hours

We could meet again and spend time with her which life had stolen from us given the power

Until then she will live in my heart and we will make up for our years apart.

I listened to your news report one morning on the loss suffered by a Mother who had held her baby for a short time before the baby had passed away and I had not covered that tragic event in Poetry I wrote this for her and all of the Mothers and fathers who have lost their babies too soon. My best Poetry must just flow it is off the moment as this one was.

Kind Regards Ben Boyle .

[AntiSocialDistancer]

Spaghetti bolognese!! Fortunately we have a dog so cleaning the floor was done for me but by god - i used to find more food than I had given him under his vest, which was under a bib? How is that possible when I had seen him eat so much?!

Miss those baby days!!!

How much is a virtual consultation? I need one!