Decorating Progress

It felt a bit like spring this weekend. The sun had a little warmth in it and we were hot in our coats when we walked down to the woods with Molly. There was a moment yesterday when all the windows were open and washing was flapping on the line (the first time this year!) and I felt so happy. I've been busy - with a lot of help from my lovely parents - working in Angus's bedroom over the last two days and I thought you might like to see a few photos of our progress.

Angus's bedroom was emptied and the carpet pulled up and taken to the tip where it belongs. The floorboards are in much better condition that I could've hoped which bodes well for my plans to paint the boards in our bedroom later this year.

Small parcels have been arriving through the post over the last week  - prints, stamps, felt balls for a garland, sheets of wool felt to make a wall hanging.

Bear print from here, pine forest print from here

I'm really pleased with this stamp from here and it will come in very handy on Christmas labels. 

For now, I am experimenting with using it on fabric. It doesn't produce the solid black colour on fabric that it does on paper, but I still love the look of it. I put a piece of cardboard inside this pillowcase, to prevent the ink seeping through to the other side. Then I heat sealed the ink with a hot iron and now, apparently, it should be washable. I haven't tried yet. I'm a bit nervous to be honest.

The urge to stamp everything continued with Angus's plain white roller blind, a potato, and some fabric paint. 

Again I sealed the paint by pressing down with a hot iron onto a clean tea towel over the blind. I'm not sure if I think this semi-circle pattern is brilliant or terrible. There was a horrible moment when I dropped the ink-covered vegetable right onto the middle of the blind and thought oh bugger, I'll have to carry on with it now. We'll see what it looks like when it's back up in Angus's window. If it's terrible I'll just keep pulled up at all times and he can enjoy looking at the moon....

While my parents were painting the cream and blue bedroom walls white, I was busy working on the bed in the garage. After my experiments with chalk paint on my dressing table a couple of years ago, I decided to do this properly, by sanding and undercoating before applying a top coat of eggshell paint suitable for wood. (I am still yet to be convinced by chalk paint - that dressing table has worn so badly and chips almost every time something is knocked against it.)

I was dreading sanding the bed but it took very little time at all and wasn't nearly as caked in varnish as I'd thought it would be.

Molly came out to investigate.

 She's sniffing above the fridge and freezer because that's where we keep her sack of dog food. 

Then I applied two coats of grey undercoat.

And, so far, one of top coat. I'll see what it looks like tomorrow morning in daylight and probably do another.

Tomorrow afternoon the carpet is being laid, then we can start to move some of the furniture back into Angus's bedroom. At the moment he is sleeping on his mattress on the floor of Bella's bedroom, where he is very cosy but you can't really open the door very far so it's all a bit squashed. But, so far so good. 

It's half term for us now and we'll be spending most of it with family, so I don't think much will happen now until next weekend, but there's no rush. Happy half term to those of you on holiday, and have a good week back at school/work to those of you who've already enjoyed your break.