Decorating by Dot

Ok confession time - this post is nothing about simplicity or frugal living or sustainability.  It is purely about decorating; completely frivolous but also about making the house 'ours'.

Just before Christmas Jean-Luc and I decided to get some of the house painted.  The amazing Dot was recommended by an acquaintance and she was a completely brilliant professional.  Thorough, neat and the Nu loved her; so much so she kept following her around and getting her whiskers into everything - but not the gloss thankfully.

So what did the lovely Dot do?

She painted our halls, stairs, landings and awkward bits.  Basic magnolia and white to bring light into the stairwell and something calm to hang our pictures against.

 She turned the dark and dreary plaster in our bedroom into...

...this bright and cheerful bedroom.

And I finally got my quilt back on the wall - I've had this quilt hanging on every bedroom wall since I made it in the early 90's and having it up again really said 'Home' to me.

Dot also bought a touch of professional pizzazz to our living room.

It turned out the two greens we'd chosen were much too dark so after some hasty consultation with Dot, we decided to go with some much lighter shades, a sort of Wedgewood for the ceiling and spring green for the back wall.  

We were thrilled with the finished job - no more dreary, cold grey paintwork but a bright and cheerful room that becomes really cosy when the curtains are drawn and the lamps turned on.

 Once Dot had finished Jean-Luc put down some edging on the floor

and put in a ceiling rose; while I swept, vacuumed and washed floors before shifting furniture back.

All we need to do now is find a lampshade.

Thanks Dot!

Christmas Decorations

Today Jean-Luc and I have been busy; very busy.

We are feeling virtuous and hard working.

Jean-Luc has been vacuuming spider webs from the ceiling and cornice and cuprinolling the boards which, one day, will form the sides of the much heralded; but as yet unbuilt, veggie beds.

I have been scrubbing.  All the doors, door frames, skirting boards, stair rails, banisters and other sundry woodwork have been scrubbed and washed from the attic all the way down to the hall.

There are no pictures of all this industry, it is not photogenic.  

Suffice to say Jean-Luc ended up dusty and dirty with a faint Cuprinol moustache; whilst I have the knees of a housemaid and the withered fingers of a scullery maid.

Why all this industry I hear you ask?

Well we have a decorator coming to paint diverse and various rooms.

We have spent weeks with paint charts scattered across the dining table and living room.

We've had samples wedged into picture frames and stared at them in sunlight and cloud, day and night, in daylight and lamplight.

And finally we have Decided.

So the highly recommended Dot is coming to paint our bedroom with its raw plaster walls; our hall, stairs and landing which Jean-Luc was thinking of painting and which I vetoed as being too dangerous without the aid of a net; and the living room which we thought could benefit from the tender auspices of a professional.

The living room will have a light sage ceiling, magnolia walls and a darker green sage on the alcoves above the bookshelves and on the wall opposite the window.  We're hoping it'll be warmer than the as yet identified cold greyish colour we have inherited.

The bedroom will also be magnolia with the wall opposite the window will be a lovely sunny warm yellow.

This will be in an attempt to make this north facing room warm and bright.

It's not the 'master bedroom' of the house.  That bedroom faces south but also overlooks the quite busy road that runs outside the front of the house.

The bedroom we sleep in is almost as large as the 'master bedroom';  it overlooks the fields at the back of the house, which means we can lie in bed on a Sunday and gaze at the view and admire the cows; we can listen to the sound of the braying donkey and the gentle clucking of the neighbours chickens and, when the wind is in the right direction, the sound of church bells; but most importantly we cannot hear the traffic.

This makes it worth it being a slightly chillier room in our estimation.

However, we are both sick and tired of raw plaster wall and eagerly await the rooms transformation into something cheery and bright.

It may be so cheery and bright that it will require new bedding to measure up. 

I have been perusing the John Lewis bedding just in case.  Jean-Luc doesn't know this yet.  I'll break it to him gently at a later date.

A Nu Look

We're finally getting round to painting the house.  We moved in 11 months ago and decided not to decorate straight away as we had a few things we wanted to do first (the built in bookcases for a start); and a whole load of making good on some issues we found (i.e. a thermostat on the heating boiler).  We also had to wait for the plaster  to dry on the walls of our bedrooom (not the front bedroom but the back bedroom which has better views across the fields and is quieter - if you don't count owls, donkeys, foxes and chickens - and we don't).  On top of this we wanted to live in the house a while in different seasons to see what the light was like.

So having let the plaster mature, sorted out our major and 'making good' jobs (boy were there a lot of making good jobs the previous owners had left for us to do) having  seen the seasons through; it's time to dive into paint charts and start daubing the walls with test pots (what? oh sorry! Jean-Luc says no test pot squares - whoops too late!).

Anyway we popped into the local DIY place and bought home some swatch samples.  We were quite enamoured of the surround of one of the pictures that Jean-Luc painted of the Nu over two years ago.  Obviously with such an important aesthetic decision to make and with it based on her elegance and beauty; the Nu felt she had to approve it.

Do I not look beautiful?  See how the colours compliment my luscious pelt?
I will let them proceed!

ps for anyone still interested we're going for the second green on the right tucked into the picture frame for one and bit (above the bookshelves) walls and the rest will probably be magnolia to add a bit of light and warmth.  Fingers crossed the Nu approves of it. 

pps Autumn must be here as the Nu is now spending part of the evening on the sofa as opposed to laying waste to the local rodent population.  If you listen carefully you can hear a collective mouse sigh of relief.  Death of Rats is also glad to be able to take a break.