Bedroom

While Bradley was at home on his electrical working staycation I had my own big task. Not quite as big but still an ordeal.

The bedroom had some old wainscotting, which was a little wonky. The slats were varying widths, varying heights, and had some mismatched areas of tongue and groove in the corner where a radiator was removed.So we decided the room would be much improved if we removed it. It was really the only thing that people criticized when visiting our house. The concensus being that it was more weird than charming.
Not being the most patient person in the world I couldn't wait to rip it out and see what was underneath. It wasn't too bad - the walls were intact underneath aside from numerous nail holes, a little strip of old wallpaper and some wiggly lines of adhesive.

Ok, as you can see above it was pretty bad... but not as bad as I had imagined it might be!

The best way to deal with cleaning up walls that have adhesive or other flaws is to chip or scrape off any bits that stick out, then skim coat the walls, then sand, then prime and paint. Usually it will take a couple of episodes of skimming and sanding to get it just right. The big trick I learned is to use a wide tool for skim coating, not a little putty knife.Now that I've done the first coat of paint I can see some more flaws I need to fix. But the walls look much better. I chose a pale neutral gray Benjamin Moore colour called Gray Mist. It's very subtle, quite warm, and just enough colour to contrast with the trim. I like the trim in our new house so I wanted it to show.

So that's the plan for the walls, next I'll show the furnishings!