WINTER WONDERS 10 - PLANS

I have gone through the house in my mind and planned how I will prepare it for living. What was originally my parent's bedroom, then Dad's, then my son's, will continue to be my son's room. What was originally my bedroom, became a store room, then returned to be my bedroom yet again, will continue to be my bedroom - but I shall rip down the sign from the door. I have NOT been called Sandra, but Sande, for many years....

The bathroom, toilet, hallways stairs and kitchen will all remain as they have always been in room, but definitely not in color! What was a lounge then became my father's bed-sit room, will become the spare room. If I get a lodger they will go in there, and if not it will be vacant for guests. Or perhaps I will find another use for it. Along with my son's room, it will need a carpet installed later in the year. (It does have one, but it is 40+ years old and nasty things have fallen upon it!)

This leaves the 'pink n white room' - originally an outhouse, then a darts room, dining room, store room, lounge, store room...now to become my read and relax room. I shall keep the colors on the walls though.

So, ahead lies painting, carpeting, and a garden shape-up. Early in January I began spring cleaning a tad early - by cleaning 5 windows including the one in the read and relax room. I can already bird-watch - even if I do not yet have space to sit, read, relax, and still have stacks of painting items and junk in there. Once the bike is gone, I can get rid of the smaller stuff and 2 large wooden 'things', clean up, then begin to make the room the way I wish it to be.

I also thought I would tidy up my room. The first job had been done - along with the vacuuming and cleaning the windowsill. My pink pouffe was somewhat untidy - and has now been fixed to reasonable.

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The kitchen floor also had a few paint-drops to be cleaned off. Postponing this task until after painting the hall, I cleaned up the windowsill in my read n relax room. As you can see - it is an ideal place for birdwatching!

But, there is still much work to be done before birdwatching, Yoga, meditation and reading could occupy me in this room-to-be... Most of the hallway flakey paint came off easily - though there were some stubborn patches. I worked at the hall walls for a few days - cleaning up afterwards, as I simply cannot bear the mess. I find it so depressing to see dust, flakes of paint and paper, and spots of this and that on the floor.

I still felt dusty for a few days afterwards, anyway. A facemask, shoes, jumper and pants were not sufficient to keep me spotless and dustless. Tiny paint scrapings and sanded polyfilla dust filled my hair, eyelashes.... But eventually, the lower hall walls were ready for paint application!

 

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Back to work after Christmas - I had planned to work on the walls over the holidays, not personally celebrating the event, but ran low on polyfilla and had to wait til the stores opened again. I picked up a new tube regular polyfilla - and a can of spray polyfilla to investigate.

I made a complete botch up of the first fill-in or two - where I broke off loose plaster and applied large globs of polyfilla. Severe sanding down was required prior to getting the paint tub opened! However, as I progressed I found a way of making the polyfilla application both easy and look good. Bye bye scraper-tool, hello disposable glove!

A friend had said that using a finger was easier, and this did appear to be the case. However, being a clean-freak that avoids chemicals as much as possible, I prefered to wear the disposable gloves that I had over from caring for my father.

The trick is to spray the polyfilla spray onto the area to be filled first. The second step is to apply a small glob of regular polyfilla to a gloved finger and work it in - repeating til the hole is filled - then smooth it over. A gloved finger makes the result much less lumpy than the tool - which I found pulled the polyfilla out more than smoothed it in. I did end up with a few splotches on the carpet though - but they seem to wear off easily.

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Over the Christmas period, I arranged to donate my wooden dining chairs and TV/set top box. These are both items that most households require - but I don't watch TV and don't sit at a table to eat my meals.

This left more space in the 'pink and white' room - for which I have plans! It will be my 'read and relax' room when completed. I aim to bring my tall white bookshelf downstairs into this room and fill it only with Buddhism, philosophy, travel, bird ID, and cook books.

 

As you can see - I still have a way to go before there is room or cleanliness enough to do this task. I also aim to bring in the former tv table and use as an alter, add some form of seating and use the last remnants of the linoleum, which will hopefully provide a new Yoga spot! In the meantime, I got distracted and turned out my underwear and sock drawers. THIS...

 

...became THIS.

I now have a bag of underwear that I do not intend to ever wear again ready for the next charity bag that plops through the door. I also have the legal document stating I own the house officially, now. This means that both actually and legally - it is my dump to turn into my palace....

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Before continuing with the story of the lower hall walls, I will share with you a piece of embroidery that I created in elementary school. At the time, I was cross because after I had stitched the outline, I began to fill it in with lots of tiny stitches in a mess - that I thought looked pretty and realistic. The teacher told me to take them all out again and do 'proper stitches'. So, despite the result being what the teacher wanted and being sufficient for my parents to showcase on their wall for around 40 years, I was not happy with the result or proud of it - and hence it is now in the trash bag. Had I done it my own way, with the mass of messy stitching, it might be scheduled to return to the wall....

Here I was with my lower hall walls half-ready. There were several yukky areas to be dealt with before painting though. Such as the area that had once been a lightswitch until the rewiring and a few chunks from the joint below. The wall around the water tap was not very pretty, but mostly in tact. The main job lying ahead was to scrape off the flaky paint that lay under the wallpaper...

Doing this, I ended up extremely dusty and felt dirty for days afterwards. At one point I had to stop, vacuum up the mess, call it a day and shower. I simply could not bear so much mess. But, soon after I got back to it.

Christmas arrived, just as I began to realize I might not have enough polyfilla left in the tube...

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It was only the weekend before Christmas when I stripped the wallpaper from the walls. Luckily, I do not celebrate the festivities or expect guests - because there was a dreadful mess left behind after stripping the wallpaper. There was at least one bag full of debris/soaked sheets to dispose of.

My next tasks were to go around the edge of the electric cable cover and 'knife-off' the remaining scraps of paper, wash off any paint flakes, and let the wall dry off while cleaning up the mess below. A solid vacuuming was required to turn the feeling of 'Oh no! What have I done - why did I start to do this!' into 'Phew! This is going to look good when it is finished'.

After the clean-up, more polyfilla work was required. Although the photo came out blurry, there is a long crack and a few holes above the front door to be tackled - as well as THIS!

 

Two patches on the wall that I thought was the best of the lot required my attention prior to paint. In fact, the wall I was somewhat hesitant of de-papering was in the best condition of the lot.

One of the 'relief points' for me was the fact that 'I OWN THIS HOUSE'. Had it belonged to my parents still, or been rented still, I might have become somewhat upset and concerned at what I had done and might need to do. Knowing that it belonged to ME however, allowed me the freedom to feel that whatever I did to it, however many accidents or disasters occurred, it was MY property. I had noone to answer to if I made a complete botch up. So, I chose to break off the broken chunks and polyfill the dent...

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This being the case, I planned to see what condition the step ladder in the polytunnel is in and possibly try to clean up the one in the side alleyway prior to tackling the bathroom. Shortly before Christmas, I decided to stop being lazy and get on with the halls and stairs painting. I had to decide which wallpaper to leave and which to remove. On the stairs in the lower hall, one piece was almost falling off, so I pulled it off, convinced the wall felt reasonable enough to strip.

 

A coffee-visitor gave their opinion, as someone who does their own redecorating, that all the wallpaper should be removed. I decided to tackle this task. The white bubble-paper was fairly easy to remove, having mostly fallen away from the wall anyway. Some of the other wallpaper came off easily, but some was reluctant to part from the wall.

Over the 60 years that the house was rented and then purchased by my parents, they had applied 3 coats of pink pastel patterned wallpaper - none of which I particularly liked. I am not a big fan of wallpaper of any type, to be honest. The friend who had popped round with another friend for coffee earlier, dropped off a machine later on...

This machine looked rather like a garden hose and weedkiller spray tub, and acted much as a steam-jet clothes iron. When applied for just a few seconds to the wallpaper, the wallpaper simply fell off! I was somewhat hesitant at first - but will agree that it definitely made the job extremely easy!

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My next task was the 3-step polyfilla-ing of the chunk of wall my son took out in preparation for the next round of painting. The photo depicts stage two, after which one more globbing of polyfilla was applied and the gap is now in need of a sand-down prior to being 'fixed'.

I had planned to tackle the bathroom next, as I had already opened the kitchen/bathroom 'almost white' paint to paint the kitchen ceiling with. Plans were to paint out the bathroom with the remaining 3/4 tub paint and then add some color at some point in the future. However, if you take a look at the extensive work that needs to be done prior to painting the room, I am sure you will agree that the necessity of a stepladder rather than just a dining chair is required. I do not feel 'safe and secure' standing on a dining chair on top a sheet in a bath tub for instance...

There is sufficient fall-out of plaster around the heater that dad had installed shortly before he moved downstairs and no longer used it. I shall need to remove the loose chunks and polyfill or plaster in the dent prior to painting. A couple of holes in the wall are present from the removal of the former bathroom cabinet, self erected by my father and removed by myself. Additionally, there are some minor cracks that need to be wiped back and possibly attended to.

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Continuing into December, I took a short break from the painting work and turning out to yet again turn out the pantry. Here you can see its updated format, with 'eat asap' foods on the lower 3 shelves, 'eat in next 6 months' foods on the middle shelf, and 'eat whenever' foods on the upper shelf.

 

 

 

This photo shows why I decided to invest £120 in a brand new mattress. This is not the only or worst 'patch', and if these afflictions are put to the bottom, 3 lumpy patches appear - one gets my knee, one my shoulder, and one escapes everything.

When I returned to the UK from Australia in 2009, Dad assured me I had a 'decent mattress' at my disposal. I think our ideas of decent differ, as although the worn patches and bumpy bits were not yet evident at that point, I could see some oversew keeping it together and knew full well it had a shelf life of less than 5 years. To make it 4 years, was pretty good going, therefore. THIS LINK leads to the mattress I chose. It was marked down considerably - and I like bagging a bargain!

It is listed as 2-man delivery service to room of choice, meaning I do not have to lug a great big mattress upstairs, or remove my old one down. It is also listed as taking away one old mattress and free delivery. This is the same store I purchased my late Father's pine bedframe/extra firm orthopaedic mattress from and they were good quality. (My son now has these less than 2YO luxuries, after using a camp bed for several months)

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December has begun and I have continued to work on the interior painting projects, mostly. I began by buying a tin of bathroom/kitchen paint and preparing to paint the ceiling. My son's former curtains and dad's former mattress protector came in handy - as did our friend's painting sheets.

Onion at the ready, face mask was applied and I began! Ceiling painting - for me at any rate - is far more difficult than walls and things. Primarily, this is because the ceiling is above the brush, and paint is subject to gravity...

So, whilst the ceiling became much brighter, cleaner, and fresher with its new coat of paint - alas a few drops fell down. In the above picture you can see the dramatic contrast is dirty once-was-white and new paint. You can't see the spot that fell on my trouser leg, the few spots the fell on the floor, or the multitude of spots that fell on the painting-sheets though!

 

Once the ceiling had had its second coat applied on the day following, I painted the corner table. I finished the table with a top coat 2 days later, on the second Monday in December. There is still a little hazelnut gloss left, and I am trying to decide if I will use it on the sink surround or on the two wood chairs. 

Meanwhile, the ceiling was completed and looking good. One task I found extremely difficult was the top coat - the ceiling already looked the same color I was applying, so it was difficult to judge where I had and had not repainted!

 

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Along with the green trolley my grandfather made, were 4 plastic tubs and a broken kitchen table. Regular readers may recall that I used the old kitchen table and some plastic storage tubs to create a 'raised bed' for my father, the avid gardener, when his mobility deteriorated. Since he passed away, there has been no need for 'raised beds' and I took advantage of a tip-trip drive a friend offered to get rid of the past.

Also on the above picture, you can see green netting - this was what was placed above the foot high brick wall and tied into place with green wire to act as a garden fence. Since winds a few years ago blew it to bits, it had just sat there, broken... I preferred to have just the wall, so ripped down the fence at the same time as emptying a third of the poly tunnel.

Here you can see the brick wall without the messy broken plastic green netting fence - and the front yard with the soil from the tubs, instead of the tubs on a broken kitchen table. In spring, I hope to level off the soil, remove weeds, and begin to grow what I choose in the front - and back - yards. Now, we can progress into winter 2013/14...