Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Morning m'dears,
An icy start again this morning - frosted cars & white lawn. Woke up early with my head full of decorating logistics. We are going to spend some time this morning planning the rest of the improvement work on our house. We felt we needed to put it on pause for Christmas, then Lockdown, but now we need to obtain quotes & get things finished.
Planning first though, & that's going to mean coffee. And plenty of it.
And my clipboard's coming out to show I mean business!
Wishing everyone a nice day, 
F x

Sun_Addict

Another one here with thoughts of home improvements. Recently had new windows and front door, my thoughts are now turning to refurbishing the master bedroom. Got a couple of firms to ring for quotes tomorrow, need to know what costs are involved and how much to save.

foxgloves

That's exactly what we've been doing this morning, Sun_Addict. I think a glimpse of nearly-spring sunshine has given us that little boost to get our major programme of works finished. 
Hello me'dears,
A really useful morning here. Fortified by a bowl of porridge made by the Porridge-Maker-in-Chief (i.e not me!) & 3 coffees, we have spent an hour & a half sitting discussing our painting & decorating requirements & making notes. I've just typed them up & printed them out as a document we can discuss when obtaining quotes. Apart from 25 years ago, when I paid my window cleaner to paint the exterior window frames on my old house (he was rubbish at painting ....& window cleaning, as it happened), I have never engaged anybody to come & do painting & decorating. We have always done it ourselves. We have always known our current house (1930s) could do with one big professional going-over to raise the quality of the finish - you know that sort of tired look when realistically you just can't keep re-painting the same weary wallpaper yet again? So as part of our big planned home improvement project which we began last year & which unfortunately has been delayed by Covid, corvids, then more Covid, etc, etc, we took the decision we would just this once pay to have the place professionally spruced up. The quote part of this is very important, as neither of us has any idea whatsoever how much the work will cost. There is a lot to do. The only rooms which don't require anything are the bathroom, kitchen, lobby, conservatory & new utility. Both bedrooms, my HQ (home office), lounge, hall, landing & quite a high stairwell will need stripping back & pretty much re-doing from scratch. As the house is 85 years old, I think the walls will need re-papering before they are painted, which is fine - we want a homogenous white-walled look throughout the house, apart from the chimney breast in the lounge which I always like to be a strong statement colour (it's purple at the moment). And we will want all the woodwork doing too, apart from the doors, which are waxed pine & the bow windowsill which I stripped & stained and we still like. 
Anyway, I've contacted a local painter & decorator who is apparently quoting at the moment for his post-pandemic work schedules, so I will wait & see what he says. 
Beautiful sunshine again. I hadn't intended a gardening day, but I could be tempted to put my funny little wellies on & to pop out for an hour of weeding.
Take care m'dears. I think this warmer weather is going to be fetching a lot of idiots out of the woodwork, who are basically taking an attitude that Covid rules don't apply now there's a plan for lockdown starting to lift in a few weeks time. It's still quite a long way off, so I am still intending to be sensible - I'd be gutted to get the wretched thing now, when I can't be too many weeks off a vaccination.
Off to find my wellies,
F x

Onebrokelady

I'm sitting here now staring at my walls and thinking about getting the paint out,I really need to get on with it so I can get my floors done by I'm waiting for some energy to arrive from somewhere, maybe the sun will charge me up 😀

Baileys_Babe

We have white walls and ceilings throughout, our fireplace is stone with very faded (150+ years old) stencilling.

DawnW

We did the same Foxgloves, before we moved in to our house we had the whole lot decorated, top to bottom. The house is Edwardian, and the walls were in a bad state under layers of wallpaper, and to make it worse the tenants who lived here previously had painted these purple and puce   One wall and one ceiling fell down when we removed the paper, they were made of that horrible lath and plaster stuff. OH replaced these with plasterboard, had a plasterer skim them, and then we got the decorator in. The young guy next door at the time was a trained painter and decorator who had been laid off (he worked for a building firm) so we gave him the job, and he did it really well. Ten years later it is starting to look a bit tired..... but I am ignoring it for now. At least we know that we won't have walls or ceilings falling on our heads another time

Like you, we had never paid anyone to do decorating before. We were both working really long hours at the time though, so went for it, and it was money well spent. He spent ages prepping the walls, horrible dusty job that was, then lots of coats of paint. We had the walls painted with a heritage cream colour, and the paintwork white except for the old stripped pine doors. It took several weeks to finish and it cost about 3k for a large (by today's standards, large rooms) 3 storey terraced house. I have no idea what it would cost to have all that done now.

@Baileys_Babe I love the sound of your fireplace. Ours is very plain with a brick archway across the top, where the old kitchen range would have gone, and the wood stove sits now. OH has fitted a really heavy oak mantle shelf above, supported on wooden parrot brackets (now if that isn't a statement wall, I don't know what is   )

Sun_Addict

We had most of our 1930s house re-plastered and professionally painted 4 years ago. Worth every penny. The painter charged £85 a day which I thought was very reasonable and he did a great job. We used to do our own decorating quite successfully but since Mr SA became disabled it’s no longer an option ☹️ I’ve dabbled with painting on my own but am far too impatient, start off well, being really careful then suddenly there’s paint everywhere 😆

foxgloves

DawnW & Sun_Addict - Thanks for your input. Yes, I think we have reached that same conclusion - the time has come for a professional re-decorate to raise the general 'finish' of the place. I don't mind painting & Mr F is pretty good at it, but neither of us can hang wallpaper & we know we are not able to produce a professional looking finish, so I actually feel quite excited about going ahead with it.
F

foxgloves

P. S Dawn - I do know about lath ceilings..... my last house was built in 1902. Say no more! 
F

Baileys_Babe

Part of our house also has lath and plaster walls and ceilings.