We have basically finished the bathroom and like all good renovations we had to remove bits of our lounge to make it work. So rather than having a break like any normal person would we got stuck into ripping down the lounge. The ripping down itself came with its own little surprises – like the hidden doors I talked about in a previous post. We managed to survive the destruction phase and moved swiftly onto rebuilding and then onto decoration.
Decoration was tricky, I decided (no idea why) that I would do something completely different to the rest of the house. Cue paint samples. Not just any paint samples, but my request for ‘a sort of green that is like the Wade Hotel green’. If I could remember what exactly that green looked like it may have been easier. Six or more test pots later and I had settled on my green…it looks more like blue. Typical. With the paint colour picked, we moved on to the hard work of picking bi-fold doors. Thankfully, we managed to find some reasonably priced doors from Bunnings – of course they did come with their own funnies. I couldn’t decide how to glaze them: plain glass; textured glass or lead-lighting? I’d have loved lead-lights but at $400ish a panel (I needed 4) it really wasn’t worth it. I settled for some textured glass that sort of matches the lead-lights around the house. With everything picked the messy job of painting began. I have the amazing ability to completely cover myself in paint. Everywhere. This time was no different, I did manage to appear at band more than once with some extra blue face paint.
With the room all prepped and ready it was time to move onto the final touches which to me is the best bit. Will the finished room looking anything like the drawing or what’s in your imagination? If your drawing is poor enough you’ll be in for a bit of fun (I was). A few months ago we were both in Sydney and decided to pick up some lights for the lounge, they have been sitting in their boxes ever since. I got a bit of a surprise to see what they looked like all set up, the Mothership has said that are ‘interesting’. I am not sure that being called ‘interesting’ is a particularly good thing.
The last few challenges for the lounge are curtains/blinds – I still haven’t decided what I want here yet, and some art work. Thankfully the artwork challenge wasn’t too challenging at all. I managed to delegate the task to IT Guy who moonlights as Photo Guy who donated one of his wonderful photos to the cause. He didn’t manage to make the task too easy as he provided a selection of 90 photos to pick from. Shortlisting isn’t easy. Neither is trying to find a photo both Mystery DIY Man and I agree on. To make life more fun, I decided to make it a bit of an experiment. I got a discount coupon for a printed canvas of 100cm x 150cm – no amount of measuring will prepare you for its gigantic dimensions. IT Guy and I attempted to measure out the size using a 40cm ruler and some business cards. The question was: would the photo scale well? I arrived back in the office today (hot chocolate in hand) to discover a parcel that is about the same height as I am waiting for me in the reception area. It was HUGE, quite the elephant in the corner. After 15min of staring at the package I decided it was time to tackle it and see if I had made a dreadful mistake by ordering something so massive. I shouldn’t have been worried, it turned out brilliantly – even IT Guy was happy. Final challenge for the day was getting the purchase into the car, this was a massive failure for the Red Racer. Never fear, a trip home to fetch the Beige Buggy solved all our issues. The photo is now on the wall looking large – it is now affectionately referred to as ‘the window’. If only I had a view like that out my window.
