Happily, I’ve continued painting my way around the corridor. After, essentially, 8 years of continuously decorating I must admit I’m feeling a little less enamoured with the process; although oddly, that hasn’t stopped me wanting to build a house when we get to the States.
Anyhow, moderate lack of enthusiasm notwithstanding, I am strongly aware that we can’t sell the house until we finish decorating. So I’m plodding along, and actually it’s starting to make me feel more positive again. It’s one of those ‘small things are more noticeable than you perhaps at first think’ things.
That and I spent a little time looking at the photo album, looking at where we started and the progress we’ve made. That made me feel quite a lot better about progress. Sadly, I don’t have any shots (that I can see) of the delightful ‘faux wood’ vinyl wallpaper that was on the space under the stairs (some of it’s still hidden under the hardboard, I think), but there’s a shot of the stairs with their fuzzy fluffy carpet…
I mean, they’re not a patch on the stairs at our old house, but they were certainly a little dated.
Of course, our new colour scheme occasionally makes me worry that we’re producing ‘house of the 1980s’ but, I’m still rather fond of it.
Anyhow, I applied the final coat of the feature colour on the stair rail, although there’re plenty of other areas that still need more:
And, in an attempt to progress further I spent a lot of time applying go faster stripes to the corridor:
Then threw the first coat of paint onto that trim, and also attacked the kitchen door frame (which was in appalling condition having clearly been through several variations of which direction the door opened. The the original door had been replaced in the 60s(?) and I think they changed the direction it opened, because it’s the only frame in the house that had lost its lamb’s tongue trim. When the builders pulled the trim off with the door (because we were switching the door for the dining room door and having it open the other way) it took off paint, and there were quite a few dings in the frame from their ‘careful’ removal of the trim.
So when I threw the (salvaged) lamb’s tongue trim on I knew it would take a fair bit of filler and tidying. I’d thrown (quite a lot of) filler on the frame, but never sanded it. Today I set to on the sanding, although only the filler’d bits, not the trim that’s in better condition. I also only did the side that’s going to be deep, deep red (the colour we’re using in the hall is called ‘Kimono’), and I also took the time to run a bead of caulk around the frame where the trim meets the frame. I’ve not started on the ‘kitchen’ side, but that I’m counting as part of the kitchen trim, rather than part of the hall trim. Still, the whole thing’s looking a hell of a lot more respectable, so I’m hoping that with a bit of liquid sanding that’ll be ready for me to progress. Over the next couple of weeks I’m hoping to finish the red on the trim, joining up with where I’d painted before downstairs and upstairs painting the high-up section that I’ve agreed not to paint until Kathryn’s home. At any rate, the hall seems to be coming together somewhat.
I also got the mortgage statement today, which puts us about where I thought we were in terms of paid off; I’m really tempted to get an estate agent around and say ‘look, we’re going to finish these bits, how much do you think it’s worth?’.
But that’s a little scary. Because then we get to do actual sums about how much money we’re going to have when we land in USAland, rather than our current finger in the air waffling.
