Freebie Decorating

I made a plan when at my sister's house to try and get the decorating of the house finished by the time we have been in the house a year. I don't want to project to just hang there for several years, with the piles of decorating stuff occupying the kitchen side and window sill. The front half of the living room is a bit bogged down with stuff so I decided to tackle the hallway. The money situation is not that good so decorating on the cheap became the way to go. As a result I decided to bring out all the bits of left over colour from the bedrooms. Tish's bedroom colour had the most left so it has gone down the hall, up the stairs and along the landing. The orange that dominated the downstairs took a couple of coats of undercoat but it has covered beautifully.

 I took the white up the side wall to keep the space from being too dark.

Tish and I picked out this fabulous bright red for the bannister on our first trip to B&Q. It is oil based so much more troublesome to apply and dry. 

I was not worried about whether it would clash with the purples:

On the landing I used the much smaller bits left over from mine and Monkey's paints:

And the art wall that we had started in the last house has become something more permanently fixed to the wall:

And having invested about £10 on some charity shop art books we have gradually covered the gap between the colours over the last week or so. It may be protected with varnish at some point, but not having small children any more means it shouldn't get picked at and vandalised:

 The ceiling was a bit of a challenge, but I didn't fall down the stairs once:

This was 2.5 litres of satinwood that has so far done all the woodwork in the house. It finally expired so the bedroom doors and frames have not been finished, and the cupboard on the landing may yet get the bright red. The panelling round the upstairs bannister is not done ... but you know what, I am not beating myself up about it, and will get around to finishing over the next couple of weeks.

My new favourite painting, it is called 'After the bath, woman drying her left foot' by Edgar Degas.

Making the house a home: Part 1

Over the few last weeks time not spent at work has mostly been 

dedicated to making the house more homey. 

A cosy curtain at the front door to keep the draughts at bay:

The back hallway has become the cloakroom, with the maps for added educational value:

The cellar is still a jumble but we are making cushions and organising the boxes so it can become a craft room:

The upstairs landing is becoming an art collage of postcards and found pictures, a work in progress that will be added to over time:

I picked up an abandoned chair from the pavement as I rode home from work the other week and Tish has decoupaged, painted and recovered it:

I helped her for a while and then decided to do my own little decoupage project:

We have a few other things still in progress so there will be more updates over the weeks to come.

Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood

Isn't it just nice hanging out with family. I have been to visit my sister Claire for a few days. We went to the beach and then for a walk in the woods at the National Trust's Nymans estate, then we were a bit tired and the promised rain arrived so we stayed indoors and got creative. We had paused in the Laura Ashley shop in Haywards Heath (opposite the 99p shop, Haywards Heath is a town of stark contrasts) and Claire admired a bedside table in the sale for £120, complaining that the thing she had was old and tatty. She is now a poor student and should not be encouraged to spend £120 on bedside tables, so instead I encouraged her to do something more creative.

We went in the 99p shop and bought glue, sandpaper and a small tin of varnish, cost £2.97. Here is the table, it is actually a unit for a stacking stereo, nothing special but quite a good height for next to the bed:

So we followed this lovely straightforward set of instructions. First rubbed it down with sandpaper to remove the shiny surface. Then painted the outside (paint free, leftover from redecorating the living room).

I had suggested we maybe use pictures from an art book and a quick browse around the charity shops gave us exactly what we needed, 'Essential Pre-Raphaelites', cost £4:

After agonising very briefly over whether it is wrong to cut up books much tearing and chopping then followed. And then came the glueing:

Here is what the top looked like when it was done:

And then here is the whole thing complete. We added a couple of striking large pictures in the centre of the shelves.

Then added a coat of varnish. It is going to take the rest of the week to finish as the instructions suggest several coats and it was taking quite a while to dry. I came home last night but it's good that Claire had something to distract her from the important studying she has to do before her second year starts next week.