Thinking About Paint Colours

With our living room dark grey, we are thinking about either a light grey or even just simply white for the bedroom as it gets less sunlight. Im going to think about it it over the week.

Layers of Original Paint Colours

Here are some photos of the crazy paint colours that the door frames have been painted over time. There was even a faux wood effect that you can see in the top photo! This reminds me that we need to think about what colour to paint the bedroom...

Doors & Hinges

Today Flo has been repairing our Georgian doors. We've re-installed the original latches, but bought brand new stainless steel ball bearing hinges (at the bargain price of just £3.99 a pair from Screwfix), as the others were just too rusted and paint covered to salvage.

Meanwhile, outside...

Here is a photograph taken outside our building, while we wait for the plaster to dry on the inside.

Living Room Floor Paint

Before we had the plasterer in to do the bedroom we cleared everything out of the living room to make way for a fresh coat of white floor paint. The black unpainted boards were found in the corner where we removed the cupboard. In the overall view in line with my (very dusty) slippers, you can see the yellowed floor boards which we left unpainted temporarily as a pathway to access the bathroom.

Loft style Living in a 1 bedroom flat

Our flat is now comprised of Flo's Workshop of Fine Carpentry in one room, and our open plan 'loft style' living/dining/sleeping space in the other. Its a bit like living in a studio flat again, but at least we have one area of calm (the grey walls glimpsed through the hallway in the photo), to escape the chaos of living in a partial building site!

Back to Chaos

We spent our friday night frantically stripping the lining paper off the walls in our entrance hallway in preparation for another visit from the plasterer on Saturday morning. In addition to the hallway, he also plastered our bedroom. Welcome back chaos and dust everywhere!

Our Sofa Palette

So the winner for the sofa upholstery is 'Lucca 1-174' by Kvadrat! (Now to get that trade discount!).

The wood sample shows the approximate colour of the teak legs of the sofa bed.

We've chosen an acid green fabric with Lucienne Day 'Dandelion Clocks' for the scatter cushions. Lucienne Day was one of Britain's most famous textile designers from the 1950's. She was married to Robin Day, the famous furniture designer, and together they are often considered the British equivalent to Charles and Ray Eames in America.

We've Moved Cards!

We finally managed to send out our 'We've Moved' last week. I hope they reached you!

Fabric Decisions

We've narrowed it down to just three fabrics:
1. Lazio 2 by Kvadrat - colour 173 (a solid dark grey)
2. Lucca 1 by Kvadrat - colour 174 (dark grey with slight lighter weave)
3. Linara in Charcoal by Romo

A trip to Kvadrat to look at Upholstery

We've found a really great retro sofa bed (at last!) and have now entered into the world of upholstery as it needs to be re-covered. For inspiration Flo and I visited the swanky new Kvadrat showroom designed by award winning British architect David Adjaye on our lunch hour last week. Here is an image I found on the internet of the showroom.

Before & After Door Architraves

Evidence that all our hard work stripping and sanding the woodwork was worth it!

Evening Light

We thought we'd share with you the pretty evening light coming into our newly painted living room. I know you are waiting for the whole room view but we have a few more finishing touches to do before we can reveal it in its entirety!

Adding our own Patches and Repairs

Here are some of the patches and repairs to the door architraves that we added where damaged wood work needed to be replaced, and latch holes infilled. Its nice to think that Flo's handiwork is now part of the building's history!

Existing Door Patches

When we had our doors stripped to remove all the years of gooped up paint, the previous patches and repairs were revealed - like this infill where the door knob and key hold used to be. In Georgian times doors were typically hung on the opposite side so instead of opening against the wall they would open into the room. This would give the person in the room more time to make themselves presentable in order to receive their guest. When our building was converted from a single home into flats (we think in the 1960's) the doors would have been flipped around and the old door knob holes filled.

Sunday Brunch

Since we took a break from our renovations on Sunday morning, we thought we'd give you a break from looking at our progress photos. Instead enjoy this photo of our Canadian maple syrup drenched blueberry pancakes with streaky bacon. Mmmm!

Trim Paint

So what we will be doing this weekend? Plans include painting the fireplace, trim and doors white to finally finish off the painting... and then relaxing with the newspaper and pancakes on Sunday morning as our reward.

Grey Paint - Coat 1

After much deliberation (and many trial pots later) we gave up on finding the perfect light grey and decided to go dark. That way it wouldnt look green, or blue or mauve but well and truly grey! I hope we've made the right choice.... Here are some photos of the fireplace refurbishment in progress. Remarkably, beneath all those thick layers of paint we found the crisp sharp edges of the original timber fireplace.