And so it begins…

From top (the big light yellowish swatch), anticlockwise to end at the dark gold in the centre: Farrow & Ball Off-White, Dulux Gentle Fawn, Dulux Soft Truffle, Crown Period Colours Pale Gilt, Laura Ashley Faded Gold, Laura Ashley Old Gold

This is what pretty much every wall in our front room looks like at the moment, much to the husband’s annoyance. I’ve been talking about changing the colour of the walls ever since we bought a rug off eBay that turned out to be a) about 80 times bigger than I expected (my bad – my tape measure wasn’t long enough to measure up properly so I just, er, guessed) and b) very, very floral (yes, it was floral in the eBay photo, too – I think I might have been having a bad day).

‘Scuse the mess, but you get the idea

Those points aside, the boys seem to have been won over by what we’re affectionately calling The Granny Rug, so it looks like it’s here to stay. Which means my lovely Eau de Nil walls have got to go.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not remotely sad about this. I realised yesterday when I got my tester pots out and started swatching the place up, there is possibly nothing I like better than painting walls. If C hadn’t woken up from his nap, there probably wouldn’t have been an inch of Eau de Nil left. But that’s just it – I’ve never redecorated a room with a little (and ever-more mobile) boy in tow. Even the trip to Homebase to pick up colour charts turned into a complete Mission with a capital M. Something tells me this could get messy…

I do love a good tester pot

From top left, anticlockwise: Dulux Gentle Fawn, Dulux Muddy Puddle, (peeking out from the curtain) Dulux Perfectly Taupe, Laura Ashley Faded Gold, Dulux Soft Truffle, Crown Period Colours Imperial Gold, Crown Period Colours Pale Gilt

 

An ode to Eau De Nil… and a child-free front room

I can see the floor!

Looking through photos earlier I came across this one of our front room, just after we finished renovating it. It was the first room we tackled when we moved in a few years ago, and I painted it in turquoise, AKA my favourite colour (it’s Laura Ashley’s Pale Eau De Nil, to be precise – a muted green with a hint of blue).

Sitting in that same room now, I can’t quite believe what a couple of years’ worth of hoarding – not to mention a very small child – can do to a space. There’s stuff everywhere. Where does one put a Bumbo, a Jumperoo, a bouncy chair, a baby gym, a basket of toys, and a changing mat affectionately known as ‘the poo station’? None of which, I hasten to add, were available in Pale Eau De Nil?

I seriously need to look into some storage options before he gets any bigger and therefore requires more stuff. For now, though, I’ll look at these photographs and remember what the front room used to look like, before we took out shares in Fisher-Price…

Front room before…

Above: The psychedelic carpet was hiding some lovely floorboards that had to be spray-treated for woodworm, along with the joists underneath. Luckily they were salvageable, although thanks to a bit of a damp problem the skirting boards had to be replaced along with the plaster – we knocked it off up to a metre high to shave a bit off the price of damp proofing (when I say we, I mean my husband).

Plaster and fire surround removed

Above: The ceiling was covered in woodchip and once we took it off we could see why – there were cracks everywhere. It’s old-fashioned lath and plaster, with lovely curved edges that we didn’t want to lose, so we had to be pretty gentle with it. I spent several days filling and sanding every single crack until I could no longer lift my arms above my head. We also vetoed the idea of spotlights and went for a single chandelier instead, to minimise any unnecessary damage to the ceiling.

The fireplace before…and after.

Above: The fireplace was a project in itself. We took the whole thing off, got a local company to strip the surround (by dipping it in acid, along with all the doors in the house so the colour would be uniform throughout), repainted the cast iron with heat-resistant paint, and replaced the fire brick, the tiles (reclaimed, £10 from eBay), the hearth (reclaimed slate), the grate and the tray, both of which were from a local architectural salvage company. There’s a separate post on the fireplace coming as soon as I can work out how to convert m4v files…

The finishing touches.

Above: Once the boring bits were out the way (we also added heating and electrics, yawn) I got started on the fun stuff. If I ever win the lottery I’ll decorate houses for a living – there’s nothing better than varnishing a floor or painting a room with a nice cuppa and a bit of Radio 2…

The fireplace – finished.

My favourite radiator. Yes, I took a photo of a radiator, and I love it.