A Little Boy's First Room - Part 2

It was a good few weeks ago that I posted part one of this little tale, A Little Boy's First Room .  I thought I should finish it.  And I wanted to prove that I have been doing things on the house, not just the garden.

So the hideous purple gloss ceiling took 4 coats of paint to conceal; ceiling painted white and walls pale blue.  The far wall was painted black - so we wallpapered over that with a Cath Kidston wallpaper of London landmarks, buses and taxis.

Print from www.rukaruka.co.uk

Louis loves cars (buses and taxis in particular) and he loves animals, so I had said we would go for one or the other as a theme.  In the end we sort of went for both, with my love of London thrown in for good measure.

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The Amazing Disappearing Door

I've not been well this week.  A combination of catching some kind of throat infection that Una had last week and the plaster dust.

The builders (or da builders as we like to call them) have been at Ash Cottage for 3 weeks, and we will have them with us most of next week too.  So I know that the amazing disappearing door is not a hallucination brought on by head cold, but that they have:

• Bricked up the kitchen door to the garden.  We have 7 external doors on our house, we simply don't need that many doors.  Not to mention, it was right where the Aga's flue pipe needs to go.

Kitchen door open.   Kitchen door bricked up, and curtain to contain the dust of the new doorway.  Old doorway plastered.

• Opened up a doorway between the kitchen and the office attached to the shop, which will become our new boot room/hallway.  So behind that curtain you see in the middle picture above is Danny knocking a doorway through.

Lintel in place.

The doorway after the first rough plaster

• Done a bit of remedial work on a flue for the tumble dryer that was stupidly messed up by a previous contractor.

• Levelled door sills etc. ready for flood gates to be fitted and replaced air-bricks with ones that close in a flood.

• Knocked out two of the hideous red brick and dark wood 70's style fireplaces, to reveal the original openings.  Here's the one in the back room:

BEFORE... 

AFTER

I'm loving the colour of the green and grey-blue paints that remain on the red brick above the fireplace in the back room.  For the moment I'm not going to try removing the paint from the brick, as I'd like to use the colours as guides when I repaint the back room.

For now, I sit cold and snotty, imagining the warmth and comforting glow of the new wood burners that will go into these fireplaces in the sitting rooms, so that sitting in them is once more a pleasure.

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A Little Boy's First Room

So, how many coats do you think it will take to remove that bright purple gloss ceiling paint from sight?

Louis' room is the first to be tackled.  It's the smallest room in the house and so we hope to get it finished quickly.  The plan is to repaint in white and palest blue, with a feature wall at one end - probably wallpaper - that he will get to pick himself.

Louis loves cars - buses and taxis in particular and animals - dogs in particular.  So we are going with one of those as a theme.  I've still got an old desk and little wooden stool from my childhood that I think I will try and use.  And I've come across a couple of sets of old wooden shelves in the garage that I am going to repaint, one for him and one for Una.

However, first there is the purple peril to tackle.  Everything in this room, from radiator to window frame is painted vivid purple, except one black wall at you can just see in this picture.  It makes the room feel small and frankly sickly.  The old wooden floorboards, that you can't see in the picture, have been stained a darker colour than I would choose but are in pretty good condition for their age.  

An idea for the feature wall is to use fabric over insulation board on the wall, giving some additional insulation to the outside wall at the same time.  I've seen some lovely dog prints on Emily Bond's website.  The one that I love is below, the one that Louis really likes is only available in a linen fabric not wallpaper.

Emily Bond - Wied haired Jack Russel fabric                     emilybond.co.uk

I've found a video on Youtube that makes the upholstering look simple enough:

The room is the perfect size for a little boy's first bedroom and looks out over the garden.  And I'm looking forward to finishing it.  I've been planning and adding ideas to a pinterest board for weeks now, so, I'd better stop gabbing and get back to the painting.

Follow Mrs Fox's's board Louis' Bedroom on Pinterest.

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Ways to make you feel like you really are moving No1 - Make Curtains

I've unpacked the sewing machine (we thought we were going to move during the summer hols!) and am making a set of curtains out of a vintage curtain & bedspread given to us by Mr Fox's mum.  They will be for the children's bedroom.  They'll be sharing a room again at first.  That way, we only have to get one room clean and decorated.  Initially I'm just going to paint their room white, the curtains will stand out and add the main colour to the room; well, along with all their brightly coloured toys, books and pictures of course.

This may take a few days, just unpicking the seams is taking an age.

But I love this bright bold pattern, these 'flowers' are about 40cm each.  I'm looking forward to the end result.  And it is taking my mind off the lack of movement on our sale.

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Decorating Inspiration: A Room of Colour

A room in Virginia Woolf's home

It's taking a while to complete on the new house, so, I am channeling the energy born of frustration into lots of decorating ideas.  I want to be bold with colour in this home, no more minimalist white walls for us.  A muddle of texture and colour, pattern and pleasure for the eye that's what I'm after.

from The Black Dog by Levi Penfold

Inspiration is coming from all over the place; the little fox's books and children's TV shows:

CBBC's adaptation of Katie Morag by Mairi Hedderwick

Inspiration has come from nature - I love the colour of this lichen, but hate yellow walls in rooms, so I have to think of a way to use it as an accent, maybe with grey.  

And our holiday in Sardinia - I am itching to use bright orange somewhere, kitchen maybe. 

There have been surprises, I've found myself attracted to the idea of a green room and using pink - a colour I have always thought of as one of my least favourites.

Pinterest has been a treasure trove of ideas.  I'm particularly pleased with the development of the ideas for our hall cum bootroom:

Follow Mrs Fox's's board Hallways & Utility on Pinterest.

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