My home renovation continues, albeit very slowly. Since we are not ready to plan an extension, I decided to focus on cosmetic improvements, at least in the short term. Building work can come later!

My Home Renovation: A Purple Living Room

I began stripping wallpaper about six months ago, but the job took a while because the wallpaper appeared to be welded on, and I did the job by myself. Anyway, although our walls were not in the best condition, I decided to go ahead and paint them. We had some plastering done about a month ago to cover up the mess created when we installed new central heating and electrical wiring. And our chimney breast is ready to paint following the installation of a log burning stove and oak mantel shelf. I had smoothed the walls as much as possible, but we could not afford to have them skimmed again to make them decent. Besides, I like the rustic look!

I want to keep the character of the house and let it show its age in a graceful way. But then I panicked about what colour scheme to choose. I like rich, dark colours and am not a fan of white or magnolia. We have a grey sofa with purple and red cushions, so I wanted to pick out those colours in my walls. I decided to go for purple. I bought a lovely dark purple for our chimney breast, but then I worried that it would look too dark with the black stove. My husband reassured me, and I am sticking with the plan. Let’s be brave with colour!

My daughter loves painting

My elder daughter has discovered a love for painting since she helped me repaint her grandma’s garden room late last year, so she couldn’t wait to get stuck in. And she proved a very useful helper indeed! She took charge of the paint roller, did the work very quickly, and now she wants to finish the whole room. We will have to stagger our painting because we are working around furniture and within a family living space. Our dog is also very curious and nearly stuck his nose in a paint tin yesterday. We can’t leave him unattended in the garden because he might escape, so we must work carefully.

It’s a slow process but it is progress, and I am very happy that we finally started to inject our personality into the house. From the outside I think it looks quite dated and needs a revamp, but we can’t afford to do that yet so it will have to wait. For now we can focus on decorating our downstairs living areas and maybe even unpack some photos and put them on the walls – we have only lived here for two years!

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