And They Think It's All Over...

The decorating saga continues.... I suspect this house will be like the forth bridge - much to my delight and Dr Freds horror.... 

Estate agent picture... what we began with....

The month after we moved in we started to strip the hall stairs and landing... more nasty cream painted anaglypta wall paper - acres of it - every nook and cranny - the hall is a lovely feature of our house but was feeling fairly vast with high ceilings and sooooooo much wall space. Great for pictures eventually..... that was 3 years ago to the day as I type this!!

We took a little bit of paper off every now and again - other rooms taking priority but as the anaglypta disappeared and as other rooms were lined out any left over lining paper or wallpaper paste was used to add a bit to the the hall process - as a result we have lived with the hall looking fairly dreadful - part started - part finished for years...  time passes and familiarity breeds lack of noticing and then suddenly one day, I felt like doing it, properly...

Hallway now..

This sudden enthusiasm, of course, was not entirely helpful because it was just me, Dr Fred hadn't reached this point yet - and, I am not allowed to paint - I am TOO MESSY - However I am the chief wall-paperer and before we could do any thing the whole area needed to be lined out - a mammoth task even though some of it was already done.  We have a classic late Victorian end terrace house with an enormous drop over the stairs.  This required considerable thought and engineering to make a safe platform to hang the wallpaper from - another slight glitch - I'm ready and raring to go but there is no way I'm balancing on the (very secure) platform and hanging paper at the same time - so Dr Fred had a baptism of fire and had to be bullied into his first ever lining paper experience... He did very well - tbh I wouldn't say any different but he did actually do a very good job.  However, it meant he had in effect used up a lifetime of decorating enthusiasm the job was done and now we 'just' needed to paint but that wasn't happening any time soon.  We were contemplating being grown up and having a 'feature' wall using some interesting but funky wallpaper and mostly a plain background to hang our art collection on.  That was 9 months ago 😂😂😂- I think it was too grown up an idea for me at that point

Well - talk about procrastination... we spring cleaned the utility room and I wallpapered it.. we put a downstairs loo in and almost sorted that out.. we reroofed the shed and painted it... we even decorated my daughters house for her - I totally emptied and rehung my workroom - we finally cleared the storage in Leeds and every week we studiously ignored the hall way stairs and landing... now covered in daubs of paint of every hue and colour combination - 

My appetite turned to something way out there and very funky - it was IMMEDIATLY tempered by Dr Fred!!!  Okay, I think, dial it down a bit, stick to just 5 colours and no chequer boards and wavy lines - give up the idea of murals on every wall - be realistic!!!

The next idea of 3 colours plus a bit of gold and only a couple of wavy lines - was slightly more acceptable but remember I am not allowed to paint- I need to be very  honest here - I don't mind - I hate painting! I like overseeing and designing but I get bored painting and then some how I get messy!!! 

We bought so many paint samples - we looked at every Pinterest board - we ignored the blank walls and lived around all the paintings and furniture stored in the other rooms. - we did tear up the nasty pink carpet - hoping it would spur us to a decision - we watched the whole of Breaking Bad again... the hall sits there - central to our house - we are blind to it.... it slips back into the back ground again.

landing now ...

Eventually we reached a unanimous decision - right back to the original colour way- discarded because we felt we had too much of that colour in the house already - maybe because we like it?  We forwent the fancy wallpaper idea (for now) as the money will go further on our up and coming adventure - and with the help and a good friend (who paints nicely) Dr Fred set off painting.  there was a bit of a mantra- every little bit done is done.....  the dark blue paint started to take over and slowly the space transformed from a bitty drab drafty space into something that was starting to produce clean lines and nice vibes.

I repurposed the little white glass lampshades in to something 'interesting'.  I painted them black and then embellished them with shiny beads pieces of mirror, old jewels and feather trims - they are a cross between spiders and gothic flowers... a bit batty but much better than white!

before and during ...

We've zapped it up a wee bit with coloured ceilings - and decided to keep the paintwork white as it worked nicely with the midnight blue - a grey carpet completes this very grown up room - but I have a plan.....  there is just small space left - tucked away outside the bathroom and in the new year when energies replenish Dr Fred has given me carte blanche to have a 'play' so watch this space....