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Last year, we painted my darling son's bedroom. 3 walls and ceiling mauve and one wall burgundy - it looked lovely

A few weeks ago, he decided he needed some new, white model base coat for his War Hammer figures. He begged and pleaded with me to buy him some, on account of his Space Marines being somewhat naked without their paint, so I gave in and bought him a can because you can't send future warriors into battle undressed - right?

I came home the next day to find that he had actually used it to spray his newly-painted bedroom walls with huge (3 foot high) erm... "designs" (well I think that's what they were - let's call them cave paintings for now). He was read the riot act and warned about further customization. Did he listen? Oh no. The next week, I came home to find that he had "decorated" his white bedroom door with black, permanent marker pen and using the type of sentiment only a teenager would find amusing (cue the "I'm getting old" jokes).

Now I grant you, he was not defacing moving vehicles or knocking old ladies down in the street so that he could draw comedy moustaches on them but, nonetheless, this was unacceptable. After many attempts with various solvents and scrubby cloths, the evidence was still there - likethe blood on Blue Beard's key but, never being one to curb my children's enthusiasm for creativity, I deigned to live with it. Until now.

As we are moving, I explained to him that not everyone would appreciate his taste in decor and that the door would have to be painted over, as would the walls. He painted the door this morning, including the brass door furniture so we then couldn't get into the room for 4 hours until it dried. So, when he told us he had a date and needed to go out, my friend and I were relieved and happy to spend all evening carefully painting the walls in his room a deep red - being extra-careful not to get any paint on the ceiling (which had, remarkably, escaped un-daubed) because we only had enough paint for the walls.

We had one wall left to paint but, we wanted to wait until the next day, to see how the other three walls dried out in case we had to apply a second coat and paint the fourth wall a different colour.

Now I know what you are thinking. Mauve ceiling, red walls ... another colour on the fourth wall? Are you mad? or colour blind?

No, I'm not mad, I'm an artist and I DO know what I am doing ... More importantly, my friend and I had drunk two bottles of wine whilst painting (to keep us going) and, in fear that out lines would be wobbly, we decided to finish it off in the morning.

At that point, my son arrived home. Screaming.

Before he went out we told him that as punishment for going out and leaving us to rectify his surface demolition job, we were going to paint his bedroom bright pink and distribute pictures of it via my Web site, sending the URL to all his friends. As he came up the street he panicked because, from outside, the lighting in the room against the red paint made it look as if we really were painting it pink. Revenge (even the unintentional and unexpected kind) is sweet! <g>

He calmed down when he saw it from the inside, my friend went home and my son went for a bath. At least, that's where he told me he was going.

When he finally came downstairs he informed me he had "helped" and painted the other wall for us. To say that my blood ran cold would be an understatement.

I went and looked. Oh he had painted it alright, with an elephant I should think.

Now he has a bedroom with three carefully painted walls, the red paint cut in just to the edge of the mauve paint on the ceiling and one wall that looks like he threw paint at it until it stuck. As your eyes travel up his red action art they are inescapably drawn to the big, red, random splashes and sweeps of paint ... all over the ceiling.

I am leaving now. I am going far, far away. I may never come back. But if I do - don't ever mention red paint to me or I won't be held responsible for my actions...