Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Home is where the art is
Decorator turns 3-bed council home into Renaissance palace
A RETIRED decorator said no to magnolia and turned his threebedroom council house into a Renaissance masterpiece.
Robert Burns had no idea he was an artist in waiting before deciding to do up the “bland” terraced home after moving in 18 years ago.
But after buying an old book about Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling he let loose his creativity.
Robert, 74, said: “You can decorate council houses in whatever way you want and this is what I chose to do to make it my own.
“I used to visit car boot sales and I found a book that had pictures of the Sistine Chapel. And I remember thinking, ‘What an amazing place that is’. I started buying even more books from charity shops and I built up a collection that I took inspiration from.”
Now he has completed his life’s work, including recreations of paintings by other old masters including Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli.
Robert loves the results and only wishes he “truly discovered my talent for painting” earlier. “Life as an artist would have been great fun,” he said.
After covering every inch of the home in Brighton he has now moved on to painting celebrity portraits on canvas, which for now he just stacks up in his spare room.
“My most recent was Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby,” he said.
“During the first lockdown, I also painted Boris Johnson and did a few Sandro Botticelli inspired paintings.”
And while he will “never move out” Robert accepts that whoever eventually lives in the home after him next may not share his tastes.
He said: “The next people can choose to paint over it all if they wish.”