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