My Home Decorating Project

When we moved into our home the staircase was dark and dingy with dirty green carpet and drab wall colour. The handrails and spindles had been removed which made the stairs very unsafe. Before... The only aspects of the staircase that we liked were the dado rails and the existing light fitment. The light fitment... We needed to brighten up this area as there is no window in the stairwell. We decided on a light blue and white (colonial theme) which should create a lighter area. To decide on the shade of blue we bought a variety of testers and painted blocks of colour onto the wall (then wrote in pencil over each colour the exact name of the paint). The walls with blocks of paint... The first main job was to make the staircase safe to use. Our carpenter fitted spindles and banaster along the landing and down the right side of the stairs. We then lifted the old carpet and disposed of it, leaving the gripper rods and underlay for re-using. Once we

This is an on-going project which we haven't finished to date. When we moved into this house the garden was a mess full of weeds and rubbish... So far we have removed all the rubbish and the weeds... Tidied the borders and painted the fencing... The garden will be an on-going project for us as the ideas we have are quite expensive. The plan is to have a decking area built at the end of the garden with a fence around and steps up to it, with an arch and gate. The area we wish to cover with decking is large so this project will be expensive. We need to... - replace some of the fencing panels down the left side. - replace the huge, ugly oil container (the large metal box that I have temporarily painted with the fence paint in an effort to hide it!) - do something useful and contructive with the kid's wooden wendy house - this is an object inherited from the previous owners which is used as a shed at the moment. -remove the pampas grass plan

This room was previously a child's bedroom according the the lilac carpet and pink disney wallpaper. Before... The first job was to strip the wallpaper which was an easy job as the paper was the pre-glued type and peeled off like child's stickers. The walls were then prepared by filling holes and then sanding down. The carpet was heavily stained so this was removed and replaced with a bargain buy remnant that cost only £59 from a carpet shop closing down sale . The new carpet is a thick, short pile, hessian back in a wine colour. The colour scheme for this room was determined by the bargain buy carpet. We decided on a neutral 'soft white' for the walls and used burgundy and gold bedding to match the carpet. After...

The Mystery Of The Black Hole This room posed a problem to us in that it had a huge gaping hole where the fire should have been. inside the fireplace is something resembling an old school radiator (huge and ugly) to which various plumbers 'ooh, arr..ed' and 'tut...tutted' to whilst scratching their heads. 'Well you have a problem their me love' was the consensus of these head scratching 'experts'. So my dreams of an open fire with logs burning on those cold winter nights was subsequently dashed by the ugly backboiler. I researched backboilers in great depth (well I googled) and couldn't find a cheap solution to removing this monster. The choice was: 1. Pay a plumber by the hour to investigate wether it is useable 2. Pay a plumber by the hour to remove it 3. Pay a builder by the day to remove it (all of the above included having the chimney wall chased out to find where any pipes were going to and if they were connected to the heating s

These are some pictures of our new house as it was when we first viewed it The Garden "weeds and rubbish galore!" The Side Garden "complete with mature pampas grass" The Hallway "drab 80's revival" The Lounge "complete with the mysterious black hole previously a fireplace!" Cloakroom "No sink, no shower but it did have a loo!" The Stairs "safety first is key with the open plan design!" Bedroom 3 "note the lovely carpet designs made by the previous owners dog!" Bedroom 4 "don't we all just love scoobydoo!"

We bought our house in November 2008 and as a repossession, unluckily for us, it was in an awful mess.  It had been stripped of any saleable item including the heating boiler, fireplace, staircase spindles and handrail.  Any remaining carpets were pee stained from dogs and the decor was absolutetly awful! However, even in it's disgraced state we still fell in love with our new house and were excited as well as daunted by the prospect of the time, money and effort required to make this house our home.