My mom has always been a handy sort who is very DIY when it comes to home renovations. Over the years whenever she wanted to repaint a room she’d just do it herself. Back in the summer she moved into a new place. The walls were a dark brown colour. She wanted to change them to a sunny creamy tone. But she did something crazy and decided to hire someone else to paint. I was a bit surprised, but I get it. She’s sixty. She’s working a full time job. She had the spare money, why not have someone else take care of it for a change?
So she arranged for someone to come on a specific date, just after she took possession but before the intended “move in” time. But the guy didn’t show. And he didn’t come on the next day either. At which point my mom said “To heck with this, I’ll just do it myself.” But then there wasn’t time, so she moved into an unpainted house. Once she was moved in she started painting, and stopped and started, over and over many times. Six months later and she’s just finally finishing up the bit behind the couch.
All of which is to say this thing here, it’s brilliant, and I wish we’d had it at the beginning of this project. Meet the Roll & Stow. It’s an all-in-one painting storage / transport / anti-drying container.
Okay, that’s clever, but it’s not brilliant. However that’s not all the Roll & Stow does. It also allows you to quickly and easily pack away your “in progress” painting project. Much like my mom, most people don’t have the time to paint all day long for an entire day or two, and so jobs get broken up over the course of a few days. And what happens when you call it quits at the end of the day? You are faced with the awful job of cleaning up your rollers and brushes and of trying to get the paint back into the can. (Or you can try and wrap everything up to try and save every drop of paint. My mom used to do this trick where we stored everything in the freezer and it worked but um… messy! with the potential for horrible accidents if anything spilled.)
So here’s the brilliant part, with the Roll & Stow you just snap on the special lid and it’s transformed into an “anti-drying storage unit” that keeps paint, rollers and paint brushes from drying out—for up to one full week. When it’s time to get back to work you just remove the lid and you’re good to go. My mom told me if she’d had the Roll & Stow at the beginning of this project she likely would have finished it up much quicker, as she wouldn’t have had to worry about the daunting task of cleaning up and putting everything away, and then taking it all back out and getting it set up again.
So it saves time, it saves paint (a.k.a money), and it’s still got one more trick up it’s sleeve. When your project is done the Roll & Stow becomes the perfect place to tidily and compactly store all of your painting tools. It’s made to carry up to 40 lbs of supplies and tools.
My mom, having just moved from a four bedroom home into a two bedroom condo, was pretty excited about the whole compact storage thing. When my Roll & Stow arrived in the mail she was quick to snap it up as her own. She eyed the box and gushed on about how easy this thing was going to make it for her to put everything away in her storage unit, once the painting was finally over.
So what do you think? Doesn’t this look like one of the most clever inventions ever? I should probably mention that it comes fully assembled, and I also love the fact that the Roll & Stow was designed by a Canadian and is made right here in Canada. It’s available at Home Hardware stores across Canada, as well as BMR and La Maison du Peintre, for a retail price of $47.99.
For further info on the Roll & Stow visit www.rollandstow.com.
EDIT: The giveaway attached to this post has closed. Congrats to the lucky winner, Debbie W. of Hamilton, ON, who won a Roll & Stow of her very own.
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