Day 1088: The results are in

After tallying thousands on top of thousands of votes from our followers across the globe, the results are finally in .... and the winner is (drum roll)

Natural Calico

Basically 1/3 viewers thought this colour would look great. And they were probably right. We kinda liked Lemon Sorbet and went with that one on one of the walls. The colour was great .. it just didn't look good in the kitchen. 

So the result so far is that we didn't do anything really. But I'm leaning more towards the advice of our loyal readers and go with the Calico. 

So thanks everyone for your comments and votes - I think it shows that you know colours better than we do. I'll post when we eventually get around to painting. 

Day 990: The big cover-up

At some point we'll properly plaster the entryway. and get rid of the yellowy patterned wallpaper. But as we've seen from our front room, this is an involved process. Stripping away 90+ years of wallpaper and paint is not our idea of a fun weekend. 

So much like the British Conservatives with Brexit, we'll just kick the can down the road a bit longer. However, unlike our esteemed government - we will actually do this. Likely after we finish the loft. In the meantime, we'll just cover things up with white paint. 

The base paint we used was Zinsser Wallpaper Cover-Up. We used the cover stain version in the front room and it did a nice job on the awful nicotine stains. So hopefully this version, designed to go over wallpaper, has a similar result. We also used cover stain on the coving. 

Carolyn loves it when I take flattering live action photos of her DIY and post them in the internet. Luckily, I'm writing this post from Canada so hopefully it's forgotten by the time I get back :)

We had some obligatory Sugar Soap to clean the existing wallpaper and improve the adhesion of the paint.  

This was followed by the stain blocking paint and then a couple of coats of matt white cotton Dulux paint. 

End result looks pretty good. Much better than what was there before. Eventually this work will all be undone when we plaster the hallway. But this is likely still a while away so at least the first thing people see now when they come into our house isn't some yellowy walls.

Day 746: Crossing off the to do list

You may be wondering why we're back in the bathroom this week. The reason, unfortunately, is that we never finished the work. Got distracted with demolishing a kitchen and never had the time and/or motivation to get back to the original job. 

So a year on and the bathroom was still not painted. We kind of got used to the pink colour of plaster. But after painting the downstairs lounge, I was finally inspired to paint the bathroom. The good news is that it's a tiny room, the bad news also is that it's a tiny room. One with furniture that's difficult to move around. 

This took a bunch of drop cloths and skill (had to say that) to get done. 

First job was to finish up some of the plaster imperfections. In hindsight, we should have plastered long before finishing off the tiles. It made it a bit tougher for Jim and some of the joints between tile and wall weren't perfect - and so they needed a little touchup before painting. This involved some fine plaster patch compound a lots of sanding (cough .. dust). We also gave the rest of the walls a light sand to make sure the new primer would stick.

After that was finished, it was on to the actual painting. First drop cloths were laid down across anything that couldn't be moved. And yes, people had to "hold it" or face my wrath. 

The first coat was the No Nonsense new plaster paint. I'm a big fan of this paint as it goes on nice and thick and coats/adheres fantastically well. I'll keep using it as long as there is bare plaster to paint in the house.

A couple coats of this and things were already starting to look good. The big concern I had was people steaming up the room while the paint was still drying. Because of this, I had to time the painting with everything else going on in the house. And people had to not shower for a day. I'm glad that the girls aren't teenagers yet - this part could have been devastating!

The next weekend was time for the big show, the final coat! We spent the week again deciding on paint colours (yeah). But like the menu at a good restaurant, there thankfully weren't many options to choose from in the specialised bathroom paint category. Unlike the menu at a good restaurant, some of the options would have left a pretty bad aftertaste. Who picks these colours?

So again going with Dulux, we really had to choose between 2 colours (white and white). We went with white. The colour was Rock Salt and in this case, matt isn't an option. Sheen it is.    

The results were really good. Better than expected. Anyone not following this blog would have had no idea what the original starting place was or that the back wall was moved 12 inches. The room is still not 100% finished (trimwork etc.) but it's been move a long way forward now that it's painted. Glad to finally get this off my to-do list, back to the rest of the house now.

Day 712: Not another blog about paint .....

I thought there was nothing worse than picking tiles. I was wrong.

Paint comes in even more colours and then there is the decision of matt vs satin. BTW, to save you the reading, always go with the matt.

So the front room went from plaster pink to white .. very white .. blinding when the sun comes up in the morning white. And since we didn't put back up the curtains, sunglasses are definitely needed in the morning in our lounge.

So, for the walls I had the view of some nice neutral medium grey. Care thought we'd keep it all white. And we ended up finding every shade in between to help our discussion. Also, most people who've had the dreadful experience of painting will realise that even white isn't white - paint companies have even found a way to make that difficult. Dulux has from I could find about 15 shades of "white". So in came sample, after sample after sample. This and the fun experience of saying "hmm, that white isn't quite the white I had in mind". Argh!

So since life is full of compromises, so was our colour selection. We went with white cotton for the ceiling and polished pebble (Caitlin's choice) for the walls. It was lighter than I had in mind, but at least it wasn't white. 

You'll see on the tin that the White Cotton was a silk finish. Some websites say that silk is better in a lounge as it's brighter and easier to clean. Yes, I know it's the ceiling but you don't know the capabilities of my kids to make a mess. 

Anyway, I got the paint from homebase on a 3 for 2. Good thing as the silk looked horrible. Reflected the pendant light in some funny way and showed off every single imperfection in the ceiling.

Silk was replaced with a matt finish in the same colour. So the ceiling ended up getting 4 coats of paint in the end. Oh, how my neck really hurt after looking up for so long. At least I know we've got a good coverage.

I didn't want to make the same mistake on the walls. Instead of getting just the basic matt that doesn't clean all to well, we went with the Dulux EasyCare version. This is good for muddy, shaggy dogs and kids - apparently comparable in mess potential. After it's dry, the EasyCare is wipeable with a damp cloth without messing up the finish.

So on went on the final coats of paint. Cutting in from the edges to make sure the edges are crisp, and then roller painting the rest. I'm not sure why they don't recommend using masking tape to get a clean paint edge vs cutting in. But most YouTube clips recommend the former method. It's more time consuming and takes a bit of practice but works when you get the hang of it. 

So after all the deliberation, we were happy with the colour scheme. The Polished Pebble looked really nice - good choice Caitlin!

Day 693: $£##8@!!!!!! Trim

You'll have to excuse the profanity, but believe me, there was much of that going on during the subject of this post.

After the walls were painted a bright white, the old cornice was looking a little worse for wear. The horribly nicotine stained paint wasn't overly visible against the horrible wallpaper but now it stuck out like a City banker at a Labour party convention.

Before I could tackle the paint, first I needed to patch up all the cracks - of which there were many.

I tried the Screw Fix plaster filler which came highly recommended and some standard Polyfilla.

We really wanted to keep the original plaster cornicing to retain some of the original charm of the room. But it definitely needed some TLC. This is what I had to contend with .. times about 10.

The cracks first needed to be expanded. This may sound a bit strange but I had to take a stanley knife to the cracks to expand them even further. This then allows the plaster crack filler enough space to get into the crack and also something to bond to. 

I'm not joking about having about 10 of these to get through.

The Screw Fix stuff really worked a charm. Goes into the calking gun so it's easy to apply and is completely sandable and paintable. The only gripe is that it does shrink - even though it says it won't. But still I highly recommend it. My only advice is to put a little extra into the crack and leave it proud to be sanded down later.

In the corner, there was a larger gap vs a crack. This was left by the sparkie when he was running the light switch cable. The Polyfilla was a better option here. 

The filling was followed the next day by sanding, and sanding, and sanding. At one point I think I had completely removed my fingerprints. I tried my Tom Saywer trick (see post) but I think Care and the kids were now on to me. Eventually I got there and I had to admit that the results looked good. And no swearing yet.

All I had to do now was put on a little paint and it would be all good.

So I put on a coat of paint. ..

Followed by another coat of paint...

And another ..

And another ... But ..

No matter how much white I put on the trim, the result was always off white. The nicotine kept bleeding through. 

$£##8@!!!!!!

I had to go with the tough stuff .. Zinsser Cover Stain. This stuff is nasty and contains all sorts of laquers etc. But apparently it does the trick on nicotine (and the oil sector needs all the support it can get at the moment)

The stuff smelled up the entire house and I'm sure I shouldn't have been up a ladder when I was applying it. But the hallucinations did keep me entertained for a while :)

In the end, the stuff worked like it said it would. A couple coats of Dulux on top and the trim looked exactly as I hoped ..

Day 683: Whitewashin'

So what do you do with fresh plaster. The answer is nothing. Give it as long to dry as possible. We gave it about 2 weeks before Carolyn insisted on getting her sitting room back. We grabbed a new bucket of ScrewFix's finest new plaster paint. This was the stuff we used on the kitchen and it worked a charm. Below is the rest of the kit - an ever growing stock of poles, trays, liners and brushes. Every time we paint something I feel the need to pick up something new. 

First step was the cut in .. basically painting all the tricky parts with a smaller paint brush before moving on to the roller to move a bit quicker.

Now some people enjoy painting ... they are typically called "artists" but for the rest of us it's not the most interesting of chores. However, in painting the room, I had a bit of a Tom Sawyer moment .. For those that have no idea what I'm talking about, click the link below...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xZm2UOam74

The dialogue went something like .. 

"Daddy what are you doing?"
"Painting"
"Can I do some painting?"
"I don't know, it's very tricky to get right. And I'm very picky with my painting"
"WAAAAAAAAAA!"
"OK, OK, only if you are really careful"
(add a second kid and a wife, with roughly the same dialogue)

And before you knew it, I had a small army painting the room white.

And the pink room was now a white room. With a lovely brownish trim across the top.. But that is the subject of a future post.