Wednesday was another milestone date for us this week as the new carpet for the front room was being delivered.

I could finally count the remaining list of jobs to do on one hand for the room so that evening immediately set about touching up the walls after my previous masking disaster Thankfully true to form the paint forgave me and with a further touch up early Saturday morning, only the most eagle eyed inspector would ever know anything was ever awry.

Next job to fit the ceiling light and then to move in the furniture.

Moving furniture is another job I find I always underestimate, but at least this job felt motivating. By the end of Saturday we could sit back and admire our handiwork. Suddenly all the woes and frustrations of the decoration seemed a distant memory.

Just the door to plane now and the light switch to replace for a dimmer and the room will be complete. On to the next!

We’re well into our second weekend of painting now for what we’d originally hoped would be an easy job for an single weekend.

First order of the day was to ditch the last of the pink – namely the carpet. Thankfully the felt underlay beneath seemed in reasonable condition so that would be saved for reuse.

A job I despise almost at much as painting ceilings is sanding skirting board. I just have no idea how you’re meant to get into all the grooves. For the most part I used my electric mouse sander which always seems to sound like it’s about to pack up and die. This is technically my ‘new’ mouse sander as my previous had given up on me whilst sanding skirting boards in a previous life. Maybe it’s me and I’m just using them wrong, or maybe this is just a hint not to use Black and Decker sanders. By the time I’d finished the sanding, I could hardly hear anything above the ringing in my ears, but thankfully there was still enough time to get a coat of primer onto the windowsill and start glossing the skirting.

Painting the tops of old skirting against old plaster has always challenged me. I started off without masking, but could only manage an amateur finish. So out came the masking tape. The remaining 2 corners of the room, above the skirting and round the door frames were masked off and I slopped on the paint.

By the end of the weekend, we were pretty much ready for the carpet and to put the furniture back – just the masking tape to peel off.

..and true to all my previous experiences of masking off walls, off came the paint and voila the pink beneath was enacting it’s evil revenge. Why does this happen?! Have I bought the wrong masking tape? Oh well, thankfully the F&B paint on the walls is proving extremely forgiving when touching up areas, so that’ll be something to sort out when the carpets in.

1 Weekends job had taken almost exactly 2, but at least it was finished and we still liked the colour!

We’d had a few days to contemplate what to do about our 1980’s office room we’d gained. Various options including a complete repaint in the blue, or indeed in an entirely different colour were considered.

Friends and family had been consulted and we’d been met with such responses as “Gosh”. Clearly the grey/white scheme was not a hit.

The thought crossed my mind that actually, the worst part of the room was not infact the grey, but the combination of the grey and white. In for a penny, in for a pound, we thought we’d have a go at painting the whole room skimming stone to see if that improved things.

Before embarking on undoing all our hours spent cutting in and painting around the details, we thought we’d try a single panel in the same colour to see what we thought.

We both agreed that the uniform colour was an improvement so a couple of hours later, we had an entirely stone skimmed room.

Clearly this was going to need another coat or two, but the room began to feel lifted back out of the 80s and very much into 2014 living. Overall, we felt much more positive and energised about the painting process again. I’m sure that’ll last just until I have to start the woodwork.

A new day, another coat of white. An early start today, up and painting at 7 to try and break the back of the painting.

By lunchtime everything had had another coat of white. The ceiling was pretty much finished and good to go and there was almost no trace of the pink left on the walls.

As we broke for lunch, there was an excitement in the air as finally we would get to try the new colour on the walls in the afternoon. Just 4 hours to wait until the first coat was dry and so hopefully by the end of the days, the walls would have their first coat of “Skimming Stone” complete.

We’d opted for the “Estate Emulsion” version of Farrow and Ball’s “Skimming Stone” and I have to say, my previous fears about the paint were all unfounded.  As we set to work with a combination of rollers, brushes and the detail brushes, the paint proved remarkably forgiving, settling back to a wonderful smooth even matt finish.

My wife had originally ordered the paint and along with the various supplies she’d come back with was a set of these Hamilton brushes. I shuddered to think about how much she must have spent on these “Artists Brushes”. I imagined the glee on the salesmans face in the shop when he had recommended and sold these too her, but it transpired much humble pie was to be consumed. I still haven’t checked out the price of them, but along with the Leyland paint, these are now on my absolute must have list. Our plan was to paint the walls leaving the panneling and frames white initially. We’d purchased the blue paint to go in the panels, but I secretly hoped that if the Skimming stone / White combination looked ok, then we could hopefully leave it at that. This meant, however, that around the edges of the panneling and around the rose details, there was an awful lot of cutting in and fine detail to paint. These brushes turned out to be an absolute godsend. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

So.. back to the plan, by late evening, the walls were all coated and then the doubt crept in.

We’d gone back to the 80’s! More specifically looking at what we’d achieved, it looked like we’d turned our lovely room in to a 1980’s office. The Skimming Stone looked like graveyard grey on the wall. Far darker than we’d envisaged and seemingly far darker than the sample pot we’d tried.

What a deflating way to end a hard days work. As we pondered the options, we thought about trying a small section of Blue for the panneling to see if this would make things better.

No, the blue just seemed to make things worse. That too didn’t look like the blue colour we were expecting.

And so with a mountain of brushes, rollers and trays to wash up, we retired for the evening, feeling thoroughly depressed and unsure as to what to do next with the decorating.

I’m off in Germany with work at the moment, but received the below picture from my wife.

Looks like we’ll be painting on the weekend!
I’d also pinged the periodproperty forum for some hope of inspiration as to how to tackle painting the panels previously. Helpful as some of the suggestions were, the majority of the comments ended up being focussed on what the previous folk were thinking with the pink. The Barbara Streissland room, or my personal favourite, which this room will now be forever known as: “The Marshmallow Room”.

Anyway – Lu found this pic on the internet, which we both seemed to agree was a good balance of period vs modern..

…so I think that’s what we’ll go for. F&B and Little Greene paint ordered, I can hardly wait till saturday. Do I sound convincing? 🙂