What is it??

Ok, so the final coat of white paint has gone onto the hallway walls and the orange has finally gone!!  Woodwork next!  In the meantime I have turned my attention to the front door.  I want to paint it......either the inside white and outside a chalky blue or both sides a chalky blue - which do you think??

My next question is.........can anyone recommend a paint that comes in that lovely bluey/grey colour that is for wood.  I have looked at Crown and Dulux but their colours aren't very exciting!

Now for my final question...............what is this called??

I want to change all the door furniture to either silver or black, but just don't know what this is called. It is the knob you use to pull the door shut behind you, but I can't find them anywhere and dont know what to look for on e-bay or the internet.
Can anyone help??!!

Technical Help please

I wonder if any of you, more experienced, bloggers can help me??!!

My son has set up his own blog on Harry Potter.  However, everytime he tries to follow someone - it shows as his real name and not his blogging name.  We have gone through all the admin type screens trying to find where this is linking in from, but we are stuck! 

We would be grateful for any advice you can give on where to go from here!

Thank you!
-x-

Project Update

In a previous blog I showed you some of the things I was making-over for my daughters bedroom........

There was the pine chest of drawers which was white and now....

Then the Dunelm Mill storage chest which was cream with painted flowers.............

And now the cheap e-bay screen..............ah wait a minute, I need to explain that this is still a (slow) work in progress.....

I am glueing square scraps of wallpaper onto the frame. They are just hanging over the inside edge, because then I am going to attach the pink gingham material to hide this........I have just held the material on it below to give you an idea of how it will look....
 

And finally the hallway.  This, again, is still a work in progress(literally - so please ignore the decorating stuff) but we are getting there.......

It still needs a third coat tomorrow but so nice to see that the orange is finally hidden!!!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
-x-

Good news

Well today I got some news, that I have been waiting since October for!  I have been funded to do a Level 3 Diploma in Early Years/Childcare! There has been lots of hope building and disappointments since last year, but it has finally been signed off so that myself and 6 colleagues will be starting the course in about 2 weeks time!!
It will mean lots of hard work for between 1-2 years, but will def be worth it in the end.

Right then, I mentioned yesterday that I need some help.  On Wednesday my children are going to stay with my parents for a couple of nights so that we can get underway with painting the hallway.  This is going to be a makeover where I keep the current wallpaper and paint over it, keep the laminate in the downstairs hall and replace the carpet up the stairs and along the landings. I will need to replace the curtains and need new rugs etc but all in all it shouldn't be too expensive.


Now my problem........

There was a bannister on the right hand side of the stairs, attached to the wall.  We have removed it so that we can paint the wall, but it is so much wider and less old fashioned without it.  My dilema is, what can I put on the wall to hide the holes, if I dont put it back up after.  


As you can see from the first photo, the holes are not that high up, so I cant hang pictures to cover them (there are about 5 sets in all) plus there is a round dent in the wallpaper around the actual holes.


Any ideas anyone???

Makeovers

Some of the changes we have made to rooms in our house have been full blown ripping up flooring, taking down wallpaper, re-plastering etc. Then other rooms we have just done "for now" makeovers, using as much of what is already there and just getting rid of the offensive bits!! until such a time as we can afford to start from scratch. So as susan's country dreams has rightly pointed out............it's a good job our bathroom suite wasn't avocado!! (See last blog)

Another Room

 
 
Firstly a big thank you to susan's country dreams who nominated me for this award.  It's my first one, so even more special! I have been given extra hours at work, so I don't get to write as many blogs as I would like to. But it is nice to know that people are enjoying reading them as much as I enjoy writing them!!

Now it is about time I showed you another room.  I don't have any before pictures as it was a fairly instant makeover as soon as we moved in.  So I will paint a picture for you...........

The bathroom - pink carpet, orange stained wood everywhere (including bath panel, toilet seat, back of door and wall cupboards), white painted wallpaper at the top with an old fashioned looking ugly flowery border, frilly curtains............


So, I pulled off the border, painted the wallpaper a beige colour to match in with the tiles - which I didnt mind at all (They are actually pink and beige with pretty flowers - not peach as they look in the photo).
I painted all the stained wood white, got rid of their horrible cupboards, pulled up the carpet and put down a vinyl..........you get the picture!? So here are the "after" pictures

This photo has just reminded me though, that I still haven't got round to changing the wooden toilet flush! but this will show the "nice" orange pine colour.

The window display

Handy, and more attractive, storage shelves

This is where the spare toilet rolls live.


So that's my bathroom!


I need some ideas from you for a problem I have with my hallway decorating - but I will come back for those tomorrow!


-x-

Donut bargains!!

Have had a good weekend, despite the weather.

Yesterday, we travelled to Hertfordshire to meet relatives at a Greek restaurant to celebrate my grandad inlaw's?!? 90th birthday.  There were relatives there who we hadn't seen for 15 years but it was just like we had seen them last week.  We had a real laugh and a great time.
On the way there, we stopped off at The Range but nothing much caught my eye - which is good in a way, as supposed to be only spending what we need to!  The reason we went there was to get some knobs for our new understairs cupboard.  I knew I could rely on The Range for cheap ones - and yes, I got them for £1 each!
On the way home, Ikea was calling.  But again, didnt get much - just two £1.50ish rugs for the family room and a pink and a blue flowerpot!!  
Today was my bargain day..................went to Sainsbury and whilst I was looking in the freezers I noticed that their packs of 16 mini doughnuts were reduced from £1 to 10p!!  So I bought 160 mini doughnuts for £1!!! Ideal to be added to the party food for my son's birthday tea which is coming up, and the leftovers for when we have other children round.  Not much room in the freezer for anything else now though!!
Busy week next week, but half-term week after that............hooray! Couldn't come soon enough!

Understairs Cupboard update

Nothing too exciting...........but here is an update on the understairs cupboard I was having fitted the last time I blogged.

Here are before piccies....

This shows where there was a recess back under the stairs.  We couldn't put much under there as there was a door to the small understairs cupboard. So we just had a chest of drawers with spare towels in.

This shows the old door to the original cupboard.  There is a gas meter in here but other than that we couldn't fit very much!  No ironing board or hoover, just a few bags!

 

You can also see the delightful "peach" walls and horrid brown carpet which is the only floor covering we haven't managed to replace yet.

Today, I primed all the new woodwork and have started working my way round painting over the peach wallpaper.  I actually like the embossed wallpaper, but just want to make it white! 

  This is the recessed area, now with doors on

The door has been removed from the old cupboard, but I am going to hang a curtain here, to make it look tidier and hide the gas meter.

I bought two sets of these coat hooks to put on one wall, at adult and child height, to keep our many coats tidy!

Originally I couldnt decide on a blue or grey hall.  But have now decided to stick with white walls, as I have seen lots of blue pretties that will stand out better then.  I want to paint the front door in a nice chalky blue though!

Will keep you updated.