We are currently decorating Maggot 1's bedroom. This is something of a "coming of age update" in that we are changing it from a child's to a teenager's bedroom. So it is both satisfying to get it looking clean and new, and touching to be setting him up for the next phase of life. I have also stated to anyone who will listen that this is it now until he leaves for Uni, when we will be renting it out before he thinks to come back*.
So, out is the mid-sleeper bed, currently on eBay, and in comes a "normal" bed, a wardrobe with hanging space** and a desk for homework.
The decorating itself has been as bad as it gets. Our house, built around 1900, is of solid-wall construction, actually it does have a very small cavity according to a neighbour, though it behaves a lot like a solid wall building, which means that the inside walls need to "breathe". Lining paper and silk emulsion on Maggot's 1 walls, combined with some external cracks***, meant some crumbling of plaster. Removing the lining paper also removed, in plenty of places, small or large bits of plaster, so we have had to strip it right back, fill and sand, paint a scratch coat, fill and sand again as the paint shows up all the imperfections, and finally paint again.
Maggot 1 wants a feature wall on the only internal wall, so the three external walls are now painted with white matt (the same as the ceiling), and the ceiling and three walls have taken 7.5 litres of white paint. We have done four coats I think, but that is a massive amount of paint for what is a normal sized room. The end result is very pleasing. The worst wall will need some remedial work in 3-6 months I think, but overall it it is looking great.
As for the feature wall, Maggot 1 had originally set his heart on a metalic blue paint we saw in a DIY shop, but that is obviously so popular that we cannot find it anywhere. He has gone instead for wallpaper, a white brick-effect paper that will give it the New York Loft effect, which, combined with the Plumen light fitting, will make it just right.
Maggot 2 has a football match tomorrow, but other than that, it is time at home for the whole weekend, finishing the room so that we can build and install the furniture and clear out the library, currently chocka block with stuff.
Have a great weekend, speak next week.
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* Only joking son
** now that he has shirts and blazers
*** which you may recall we fixed last Summer with a marathon cutting out of cracks with a grinding disk, filling in the mess we made, and and re-painting with several coats of masonry paint, a job that took most of the Summer
1 comment:
Ah ha, the joys of an older building. That was one of the reasons we moved - to reduce the maintenance load and the remedial work that was needed every time there was a decorating project.
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