Decorating 8

It has been very windy the last couple of days, up to around 40 mph westerlies. But it has had its benefits. Instead of having to go out and rake up all those leaves, they seem to have raked themselves! The lawn and paths are just about clear and there are very few leaves left on the trees.

As far as the back bedroom and hall, stairs and landing are concerned, I can now say we are at last on the home straight!

Sunday: I finished papering the back bedroom, painted behind the radiator, and OH replaced the radiator. The paint is very pale, so you can barely tell that there is any paint on the wall at all - but it's a pale pink colour, in case you can't quite see it!

After that, I put the first coat of paint on the wardrobe ceiling, which has dried out nicely. It didn't take long to dry as it was only damp and hadn't had the chance to get too wet. Once again, 'the blob' has positioned itself on my picture. I have tried cleaning the lens, but to no avail.

The doors to the wardrobe are not level; one is higher than the other, which might explain why it catches on the frame at the top. The handles, therefore, are not level either! I realised this when I went to take a picture of the nice shiny new door knobs:

Anyway, rehanging them will probably solve that problem. Failing that, we will need to shave a bit off the top of the left hand door, otherwise the doors don't close. Just need to add a bolt after that, so they can close properly, and add a proper rail for hanging clothes.

OH removed the radiator in the hall, so I can paper behind it, but I didn't get to that part today.

Later in the evening, I decided to go back and do the second coat of paint on the wardrobe ceiling. It will be dry tomorrow (the first coat was already dry) so I can paper the walls.

Monday: I phoned the carpet people to confirm the fitting date as Friday - nothing like adding a bit of an incentive to work even harder! Later I realised I had had a missed call from them; I (and they) had forgotten I needed to pay the balance on the goods. It was too late to do anything about it, so it will have to wait till tomorrow.

It was all go in the back bedroom today; I am determined to finish it asap now. I papered the wardrobe walls - they look so much better now you can't see the old walls, with its mismatched paint and places where filler has been used to fill old holes and more recent holes where we removed the (leaning) shelves. I had to scrape bits of old carpet off the walls where the previous owners had glued carpet pieces to the shelves.

I also did the gloss paint on the skirting under the radiator. When the radiator was lying flat (but still attached to the pipes, so 6" above the floor), I hadn't been able to reach the skirting. I also removed the curtain rail and painted the wooden batten that holds the rail up.

Not wanting to stop, I papered the rest of the stair well - at least, as far as I could reach. There was one sheet that seemed impossible - the ladder was in the way and it was impossible to reach from the landing. However, undeterred, OH found a way to do it and so he hung the awkward piece of paper. But I managed to do the longest drop by myself - with much fear and trepidation - I'm not happy up a height!

I got all the way to the front door in the hall. There are still around four sheets to hang and several short pieces over doors - some are about 8" 'long'; others are 2". I have no idea why anyone would make a house where the door frames are only two inches from the ceiling!! It's a nightmare to paper and, although the pieces are so small, it takes a long time as they are fiddly. Behind the gas meter was fiddly too, but we managed. I am seriously sick to death of wall paper and paste!!

I couldn't paper over the top of the front door. I had thought it was just some old paper that hadn't been taken off properly; but on closer inspection, it turned out to be some very rough filler that had been slapped on and, at the base of it, OH discovered a huge gap between the frame and the wall - deep rather than wide, though wide enough - and there was a nasty draught coming in through the space. So he filled it for me; the papering there will have to wait till tomorrow.

He also finished the final coat of plaster in the kitchen, so that is now smooth and flat, as it should be. He did make one cheeky comment - he said he thinks I should paper the kitchen walls too! he has got to be joking!!

On a brighter note, he finished mending the kitchen door handle - it didn't have a spindle holding the two handles together and where the 'tongue' sticks out, there was just a hole.

Tuesday: I rang the carpet people and finalised the payment.

Then I finished papering the hall and repaired the lining paper in the lounge, where I had had to remove a damaged piece. The lining paper is wider than the original by about 6", so I had to trim it to fit. So that's another little job done and I will be able to get on with the living room just as soon as the painting is done in the other rooms.

Before papering

When I left to go home for lunch, I met two men coming out of the garden of the house next door but one, carrying ladders, buckets and cloths. It seemed like a long shot (not!), but I thought I'd just ask them if they were window cleaners. 'What gave that away?' they asked! Hmm, I wonder! But they might just have been mates with the people next door but one. Anyway, yes they are window cleaners and they charge the princely sum of £3 to do the windows (seven windows in all), so they cleaned them for me and said they would call back when the house is fully occupied.

Talking of painting (I know, that was a whole paragraph ago), I painted the newly papered inside of the wardrobe. It took about an hour. Then I started on the bedroom walls. It was time consuming to do all the edges with a paint brush, plus all those fiddly places where a roller would be too big, but once I got going with the roller, it was really quick. The whole things was done in a trice - pity about the hand painting bit - the whole thing took about three hours, but would have been less than an hour if I hadn't needed to do any hand painting.

When I had finished that, I started on the hall, painting behind the radiator first so OH could replace it on the wall. It was something of a trip hazard lying flat just outside the living room door! Anyway, I finished that whole wall and, after tea, I did the adjacent wall and most of one side of the stair case.

Meanwhile, OH was working on taking out the bath. We are going to replace it, so it needs to come out before the new flooring arrives on Friday. 

The walls are covered in sheets of marble look alike plastic sheets, a bit like clicklock flooring, but vertical. 

Anyway, it was added after the bath, so in order to remove the bath, some of it had to come off - the end wall and the bath panel. Underneath, the wall had been tiled, and at some time, the tiles had presumably become unattractive, so they had been painted. Then the panels had been stuck on top of that with some really strong glue. It was a miracle he managed to get them off without damaging them. 

It's just horrible! Nothing we set out to do is straight forward. I'm sure people go out of their way to make things as hard as possible for whoever comes after them; either that, or they think they are going to live forever and will never want to change anything ever again!!

Anyway, the bath is not actually out yet, but at least it is ready just to be removed. 

So, that's all done. Tomorrow, I must finish the painting on the hall, stairs and landing - does it seem like I have been doing that area for ever? It certainly feels like it this end! I will also have to paint the hall radiator and then clean everywhere, ready for the carpet fitters. Then Thursday, I can get started on the living room - yay!!