The lounge refurbishment begins!

As I hinted in my previous post, we have begun the lounge refurbishment!  I wouldn't want you to hold your breath waiting for the end result but at least we've made a start! 

Perhaps I should start by telling you what needs to be done as this is far from a straightforward job of redecoration!  The first and probably the most major job would be to open up the staircase.  After that, Danny needs to get his electrician's hat on and put in extra sockets and lighting.  Then we want to have 'proper' skirting board because the existing thing is just a strip of wood, painted white and stuck on the wall!  The walls are currently done in what we understand to have been quite common in these parts.  It's like a flock wallpaper - hard to describe but it feels almost like a rug on the wall.  We think it will come off quite easily leaving a backing paper to strip in the normal way.  At this point, we shall judge whether or not we'll have to get a plasterer to skim over the walls before we paint them.  (My personal feeling is that it would be a worthwhile investment as it will give us a good surface to paint not just now but as necessary in years to come).

When all this is done, it will be time for me to do my bit as I want lots of soft furnishings in the room, curtains, cushions, throws etc.  (I may have to enlist the help of that very talented daughter-in-law of ours again!!) 

So, here we are on the brink of doing all that.  Last week, our friend came to help us by removing all the panelling which enclosed the staircase.  This is a photo of how it looked - with Les just about to make a start!

It turned out to be a far simpler job than we'd imagined - unusual for us as it's normally quite the reverse!  Here are a series of photos showing the panelling on the stairs going and gone, followed by the panelling on the wall under the stairs and then the door and its frame that you see on the left in the photo above.

 

Obviously the upper part of the staircase needs to be stained to match the bottom part but Danny has found a couple of tins of wood stain out in his barn so we should be able to use them.  Nothing much will happen for a few weeks now but I am hoping we might be able to work on the lounge at a steady pace through these winter months in the hope of completing it by late spring/early summer.

As I write Christmas is only a week away now.  Danny and I will have a quiet Christmas on our own this year but today when I went shopping I stocked up on some nice goodies for us to enjoy 'on the day'!  I couldn't resist taking this photo with my phone while I was in the supermarket.  Goats cheese is very popular here and there is always a huge selection just from local farms.  Today they had dedicated a whole fridge to them with a "goat farm" display above it.  This is it and I hope you can see it properly!

 

It's unlikely that I'll be posting on here again before Christmas, although I hope to do so before the end of 2014.  So I'll take this opportunity to wish everyone who takes the time to read my blog.....

 

Merry Christmas 

or

Joyeux Noël