Painting Blas, err blues

The painting is coming along slowly. As per recommendations we covered the plaster skim with a coat of matte white before adding the top coats. Trouble is these days the paints out there just don't have the covering power that the old chemical soups did. By the time we are finished there will be 3 coats totalling 18 litres of paint adorning the walls and ceiling. The lower resolution of the images make the walls appear blotchy, but they really do look a lot better, honest.

The first pic shows the final coat to two of the walls along with the newly painted coving. We've also started to measure out and place the new sub-floor. Rather than messing around with new floorboards and other nonsence we took a builder's suggestion of just putting down a new layer of heavy chip board as a sub-floor for the hardwood laminate that will eventually go on top. What we are using is actually interlocking loft flooring. What I have learned is to never trust the signs in the DIY shops. The sign said 5 packs of flooring to cover a 10 sq metre space. However on the little info sheet that is neatly buried within each pack it says each pack is 1.5 sq metres. D'oh! That means back to the shop sometime this week for 2 more.

The bottom of the walls look a bit rough but that is to allow a channel for wiring that will go behind the new skirting boards. This means we don't have to rip up the floor boards to move wires that originally were nailed to the outside of the old skirting board.

We also found the paint on the ceiling from the previous owner's redecorating hadn't stuck properly and could in places be peeled off in large chunks. This means we are now having to peel/scrape the ceiling down to the plaster and start again.

This room is now way over our original budget, not including the extra costs of having it replastered, and has taken twice as long as we originally envisaged.

Another pain in the arse has been the radiator. After re-installing it and re-pressurising the central heating, it seems the only thing that had been keeping the fittings from not leaking was the rust and gunk they were encrusted with. Another trip to the plumbing supply store for new valves and fittings is on the horizon.