To infinity and beyond……….

Well it had to happen! I’m in trouble with my DIY dad for neglecting my paint brushes. Apparently I don’t wash the paint out of them properly and that’s why several of them have gone hard and are unusable. It’s all true I’m afraid, I’m guilty as charged. My only defence is that by the time I’ve finished painting everyday I’m usually in a rush to get tidied up and back on the road in time for the school run. So often all my paint brushes get is a two minute rinse under the taps and then they are abandoned on the landing where we’ve taken to housing all our painting paraphernalia.

Anyway, in the interest of being able to hold my DIY head up high, and to save us a small fortune in replacement paint brushes, I have vowed to change my ways! And to that effect, here is a top DIY tip – after you rinse off your brushes, put them in a ziplock food bag and apparently they stay bendy and pliable and don’t dry out into rock hard lumps that are only fit for cracking walnut shells!

My second top painting tip today was given to me by C. the painter last night when he popped in with his buddy S. to see if  S. could do a bit of last minute plastering in the bathroom for us in the area where the bath is going to be fitted on Saturday (I am SO excited!). His advice was when painting bathrooms always use eggshell or soft sheen paint, apparently it doesn’t absorb as much moisture as matt paint, so it’s more hardwearing and long-lasting. It’s not such an issue in other rooms as they don’t obviously have the same moisture challenges as bathrooms.  Unfortunately this tip came too late for IB and me as our bathroom is now coated with 100% matt again. It’s kind of ironic though that we should get the advice exactly a week after we ‘accidentally’ gave the walls a second coat of brilliant white in soft sheen rather than matt.

In terms of progress on the living room since earlier in the week, the coving is now finished! And we have cornerpieces! Yes my friends, we decided that the corners were missing a little something, so after an hour on the internet, we found these:

 

 

And actually they do make the corners look a little more complete!Although I’m not sure you can tell in this picture as everything is currently coated in a layer of primer.

Look closely!

 

Living room primed and corniced!

 

My DIY Dad (who is just visible in the corner of this shot) is keen that we go the whole hog and put up a rosebowl centrepiece, but I’m not so sure, nor is IB. Also, given we haven’t yet chosen the light fitting for the living room yet,  and we could end up with something that sits close to the ceiling, we’ve opted to hold fire for now. In terms of lighting, I’ve done a little bit of scouting around but I’m tempted to wait till the painting is finished and get a feel for the room before we make a final choice. Although in keeping with my nostalgia for afternoon tea with china teacups and cake stands, I’m quite drawn to antique chandeliers at the moment, which are quite pricey but there are some less expensive replicas on the high street. Interestingly when I was looking at one online earlier, Invisible Hand kicked in (does everyone know about this? Its genius, you load it on to your computer and when you find a possible online purchase, it will pop up and show you other sites that are selling a similar item and how much for. It’s aim is to find you the same item for less) and rather bizarrely as well as providing a link to several other sites selling chandeliers, it gave me a link to a Buzz Lightyear Adult fancy dress costume on Amazon! This has nothing whatsoever to do with chandeliers (unless I’m not being very clever), however, it kept me and IB amused for at least five minutes! What do you think – should we forgo the chandelier and just order a couple of Buzz Lightyear costumes instead? They could be our painting outfits! To infinity and beyond…………..