Decorating Demons

Let's say you lived in a house that had wallpaper that looked like this all over the upstairs and downstairs hallway:
So you take it down, only to find lathe & plaster walls that almost made the wallpaper look like it was a good idea.

You also remove the paint from the stairs and the panel below them and baseboards, but the heat gun removal technique leaves it splotchy and tons of paint in crevices of the wood.

Add a not-so-high level of experience with plaster and a year with eight weddings including our own (plus showers and other parties that go along with them), a funeral, an inability to pick a paint colour without serious second-guessing oneself and you have a recipe that calls for hiring a professional.

My parents had most of their main floor re-decorated this year and were really happy with the results so we ended up calling their decorator on the "go with what you know" plan.

In addition to having the walls and ceilings repaired (no more holes!), primed and painted, they're stripping the remaining paint and staining the stairway.

The living and dining room are now a beautiful muddy york which looked too pinkey, then too browney to start out, but has so far settled into a nice colour we're both happy with. All our furniture is still in the middle of the room because the second coat still needs to go on but we're happy with the results. This is what muddy york looks like:



We've decided on hemp seed for the downstairs and upstairs hallway because the wood on the stairway and bannister is being re-stained back to its original cherried-oak colour (yay!) but combine that with a dark colour on the walls and I was worried it would make the entrance dark and even smaller than it is. It's not yet on the walls but I think it should look good. They look 100% better already with the simple addition of primer and some patch work and sanding. Just don't tell me it's beige.


The trim and ceilings are now a crisp off white, So with much of the house in chaos, I have no pictures to show, but will post some once we have places for furniture and the like.

After Christmas we're having MDF built-in bookcases made for either side of the fireplace (including a spot for the TV), and we should be ready to order the kitchen from ikea then refinish the hardwood floors. All this will go toward making our tiny place a great deal more liveable, and for that I'm thrilled.