memories – Research Adventures

The master bedroom had been my Gran’s room (yes, my Grandparents slept in separate rooms!). Now my Gran really didn’t like this room at all. She despised the double wardrobe, particularly after my Grandpa had broken one of the mirrors and she really hated the printed swirls that surrounded the walls. I had naively thought this was just patterned paper Grandpa had painted over in peach to disguise the blue and gold swirls, but no. Clearly, the previous owners had a flair for the decoration I remember featuring in the popular early 2000s TV show Changing Rooms which seemed to boil down any room make over to mdf and wall stamps. These particular wall stamps were difficult to eradicate even after Grandpa repainted the walls a couple of times! When they were younger my Grandparents would have quickly solved their decorating woes with a much more imaginative solution but by his 80s Grandpa just couldn’t paper and paint the way he once had. Gran, who previously had taken such pride in selecting the best carpets, furniture and linens was mainly house bound and she didn’t really like Grandpa’s decorating taste either. Though she often complained she also didn’t really want to be cast out of her room for any length of time. So, hating the decor became the norm.

When it came to me decorating the bedroom I had some key goals. The wardrobe and the swirls had to go! Since the swirls were stamped to the plaster work I thought the easiest solution was to pop up some lining paper. Purchasing BnQs thickest should have done the trick but no. These stubborn swirls poked through! So I took an electric sander to the wall! Perhaps a little drastic but I was already frustrated that my original solution had not worked.

My first attempt at wallpapering went relatively smoothly, though I can now appreciate the difference between paste the paper and paste the wall. Paste the paper is a messy pain, particularly for someone who is vertically challenged. It took me one whole day to paper and paint one wall, but taking my time to make sure the walls were carefully prepared gave me a much neater result.

Our bedroom in the flat had been magnolia with purple touches but we had also started to incorporate a woodland deer theme. Last winter we fell in love with bedside lamps that had deer faces as well as a duvet and pillow set with a wintery deer scene. For this new room, I had seen a decal wall portrait on ebay that featured a winter woodland with deer and thought it would be nice to tie in all of deer items to the overall decor. The ebay image had the deer on a grey background, but we preferred to maintain the rich, dark purple. Of course this colour would be too heavy for the whole room so it has been made into a feature wall with the remaining 3 walls painted ivory.

Painting the purple was quite hard work particular since the paint seemed to soak into the lining paper. I was also trying to paint on one of the hottest days of the summer! After breaking down the wardrobe we discovered the colour of the room before Grandpa’s peach and before the blue and gold. It had been bright sunflower yellow! Now, I can forgive Grandpa for painting round the wardrobe. After all, it would not have been good for an 80+ man to move a double wardrobe even with help. Clearly however, the previous or indeed the previous previous owners had just left the wardrobe in place and painted round hoping no one would notice. It worked! After several coats of ivory, the yellow was gone and the room was unified in one clear aesthetic.

With swirls gone, wardrobes gone and the peach gone, I could see the beauty of the space. It was no longer a dull, thrown together room but had flow and purpose. My husband and I had a lot fun putting up the decal, though I was a little disappointed that the stickers didn’t stay put. Later we had to stick down the seams with glue to make sure it stayed in place.

Before:

After:

So how did we achieve this look? Here are the products:

Lining paper x4 rolls: https://www.diy.com/departments/erfurt-smooth-1700-grade-lining-paper-l-10m-w-56-cm/65941_BQ.prd

Valspar gold 700 in winter Berry (this is from BnQ but it is a mix in store product and does not appear online)

Ivory: https://www.diy.com/departments/colours-standard-ivory-matt-emulsion-paint-2-5l/311959_BQ.prd

White gloss for the skirtings, which Grandpa already had in a cupboard.

Deer decal: https://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/Set-of-7-Large-Birch-Tree-Wall-Stickers-Two-Lovely-Deers-in-Forest-with-flying-/282928542064?_mwBanner=1&_rdt=1

The same roller as before found in my previous post.

Harris paint brushes

Electric sander

PVA wall glue

My Grandparents had a house in Dale Avenue that I absolutely adored. After my Grandpa’s passing, I found myself thinking about this house a lot. How it looked. The colours. Where the furniture was placed. How I would try to roller skate up the incredibly steep hill in the garden and skip on the lower patio. I mainly remember the living room, where I would sit on Gran’s beautiful ciel blue, chippendale replica recliner chair. The chairs came as a matching pair, but it was Gran’s that I would sit on to watch the television. Quite a privilege since Gran liked to keeps things neat and clean, a way of being that a young child often isn’t!

As I reminisced about this house, I was drawn to drive by it one day. I briefly sat outside it in my car and thought about these memories. I obviously didn’t go so far as to peer inside but I was pleased to see the monoblock driveway my Grandpa carefully laid one summer as well as the rot iron gates leading to the back garden are still intact.

Why am I telling you all this? When it came to painting the kitchen, I had come across Gran and Grandpa’s ciel blue Denby candle sticks and clock that once stood in the Dale Avenue living room. The colour was so striking and prompted me to remember this old house. I just knew at that point that I wanted to replicate this colour in our kitchen.

Previously, the kitchen had been the same colour as the rest of the downstairs. I lightish pink colour that matched in with tiles. Over the many years of stove top cooking, the tiles had dulled in colour and the walls were looking tired. I wanted a colour that would be inviting and happy, but different to the rest of the downstairs. I didn’t really think about the tiles or the colour of the worktops. Only that the blue of the candle sticks felt right.

During this process I had to disappear to London for a couple days and my husband kindly went to BnQ to get some tester pots. On my return home we found one colour ‘blue thistle’ was way too dark while matt ‘ciel’ was too light. What to do… Well, after taking another trip we decided ciel might be the best way to go since a darker colour might appear a too dark once it was up in the whole kitchen. We have always gone for matt paint as neither of us particularly like sheen or sparkle, but the ciel silk finish seemed to be more of a perfect match (based on the colour in my minds eye of course!). And that was it decided. Out with the credit card where I also purchased a roller!

It took me a whole day to transform the kitchen. I wanted to make this a neat and tidy job, but remembered my first painting effort in the flat had been a disaster. This time I did my research and watched professional painter videos to make sure my technique was sound. Brush painting was fine but painting with the roller was hard work and I didn’t seem to be able to get quite as even a coverage as the man in the video. I guess this takes practice. In any case, painting the room with three coats gave it the perfect finish overall.

Now when I walk in the room I am reminded of my Grandparent’s Dale Avenue house and it makes me smile. They were so lively in that house – Grandpa working in the garden and Gran hand washing clothes in the sink. I am pleased to have a happy memory of the two of them now represented in my home.

Before: