mattnewton.co.uk

Just after Christmas I started work on what used to be the spare room and is now the nursery. It was a relatively easy job. Having said that, the hardest part of it was scraping all of the awful wallpaper off (most of it just pulled off in long strips as it had been up that long), but as the wallpaper came off, it was dragging the emulsion off in patches that was underneath it. Not a problem, I thought, I’ll just sand it all down.

Thirty minutes of sanding and having only covered about twelve square inches with a room full of dust, I gave in. There must be an easier way. And there was. It’s called Basecoat. A couple of layers of Polycell Basecoat will cover up most imperfections in your wall - thank goodness. OK, so it took 2 or 3 coats of basecoat then 2 coats of emulsion on top of that, but it was a lot less hassle and much quicker than sanding down the whole room.

So, emulsion done, painting done, that only left one more thing to do - the floor. I had to call in an expert for that. My dad’s good at stuff like that - he can cut floor around the doorframe with ease, knows how to properly measure the floor where bits need chopping around things like doorframes, corners, etc. I did, however get quite acquainted with my jigsaw (the power tool, not the puzzle) and figured out how to get the cuts at each end right and then cut them (almost) straight.

With the floor down, the emulsion and painting finished, all I had to do was put up the curtain pole and hang the curtains. Should have been an easy job, but for some reason, every time I drilled I hit the mantle, so I had to keep pluggng the holes up and touching them up with emulsion. I got there in the end though, and the finished result was what we’d wanted.

Chris’ bedroom was easier - it was all one colour, but I did have to lay the basecoat down first though, becuase even though I used a steamer this time, them underlying emulsion still came off in patches.

Again, my dad came to the rescue and helped with the floor and a few days later I put up the curtain pole and his new curtains, which he keeps telling me he doesn’t like and he prefers his old ones. What can you do. Still, his Noddy duvet and wall pictures should take his mind off it, not to mention one of those rugs that looks like a town - you know the one - it has roadways, shops, etc printed on it.

The only hitch I ran into with Chris’ room was the door strip. I knew that we were pretty close to the heating pipework underneath the floor just outside his room, and I didn’t fancy drilling down into the floor to put in the door strip only to hit a main heating pipe. So I had to try to lift the floorboards, which was harder than I thought it would be. To cut a long story short, we just worked out where the beams were and drilled downwards, hoping that we were drilling into those beams to anchor the strip. Luckily we were.

All that’s left to do upstairs now is the bathroom and our bedroom. I have a feeling that it may be some time before we get round to those.