Arun's Wall Colors

A colour game the customer plays on her own walls, and whatever she settles on becomes the painter's job sheet.

Who this is for

Arun Kamble paints houses in Nashik. He and two helpers finish about six flats a month, most of them in the older buildings near Panchavati. On a Sunday morning he is standing in Mrs. Deshpande's empty hall with a fan of shade cards, and she has been holding the same two-inch square against the same wall for eleven minutes while her daughter, sitting on the floor, says no to every one of them.

How the job is done today

Arun carries shade cards gone soft at the corners. The owner holds a small square against the plaster, squints, rings her husband on video, and picks. Arun writes it in his notebook: hall ivory, bedroom light green, one wall dark. The paint shop mixes eight litres. By evening the hall is a colour nobody agreed to, and someone says it looked different on the card. Arun redoes that wall out of his own pocket. The job that was to finish Wednesday finishes Friday, and he is late for the next flat.

The screens, in order

1. Your flat — Lets the owner lay out the rooms she actually has, so every colour chosen later belongs to a real wall in a real place.
2. This room, four walls — Builds the room she is standing in, including where the window falls and which furniture is staying, so the colours sit next to her own brown sofa.
3. The colour tray — This is the play: she pours shades onto walls and pulls them back off until one of them stays.
4. Does it go — Shows her without a single word or sound when two walls in the same room are fighting each other.
5. The true strip — Gives one flat unshaded band of the real shade with the shop code on it, to hold the phone up against the plaster.
6. Arun's sheet — Turns whatever she settled on into the sheet Arun needs before he buys paint, and sends it to him.

What it keeps track of

• The flat — whose flat, which building and floor, which rooms, how many walls in each, what furniture stays in the room
• Shades — shade name, the code printed on the shop card, matte or sheen, which brand's card it came from, how it looks in daylight and under a tube light
• What she tried — which wall, which shade went on, kept or thrown back, what was on the wall beside it, how long she stayed on it
• The job sheet — who and where, room by room shade and code, how many coats, which walls need putty or patching, ceiling included or not, when she wants Arun to start

The one decision that matters

Should the game colour a photo of her own wall, or a drawn room built from her answers? A photo feels truthful, but a picture taken at seven in the evening under a tube light comes back muddy, and a muddy tint lies worse than a drawing does. She will choose a shade that does not exist. Go with the drawn room, built from what she tells it: window on the left, brown sofa, white floor tiles. A drawing does not pretend to be her wall, so nobody trusts it too far. Then hand her the flat true strip with the shop code and let her hold the phone against the plaster in daylight. The drawing is for playing. The strip is for deciding.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out litres and prices completely. The moment a number appears, the family stops playing and starts negotiating, and Arun loses the one quiet hour where they sort the colours out among themselves. He can quote from the finished sheet the way he always has. Also skip sharing and scores against other players. She is not competing with strangers, she is arguing with her daughter.

How you would know it worked

Mrs. Deshpande's sheet reaches Arun on Saturday night, before he has climbed her stairs. He buys the paint once. That month no wall is done twice at his own cost, and nobody tells him it looked different on the card.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I paint houses in Nashik and my customers pick colours off a small card, then hate the wall once it is up and I redo it for free. Build something they can play on the phone while I am measuring. Let them set up their own flat room by room, say where the window is and what furniture stays, then drag shades onto each wall and pull them off until one stays. Show them when two walls in a room are fighting, using only colour and movement, because most of them watch with the sound off. Keep one flat strip of the true shade with the shop code so they can hold the phone against the plaster. At the end turn whatever they settled on into a single sheet with room, wall, shade, code, coats, walls needing patching and a start date, and send it to me on WhatsApp. No prices anywhere in it.