"Radiance"

So, today in my never ending quest to find a foundation that covers up my facial disfigurement I have bought a new brand (clinique) which I am told is one of the best and is also used by my best friend who was burned on her face as a child. It cost about £2 more than the one I normally get so I don't think it's going to break the bank, but I am yet to try it properly so we shall see. The reason I'm telling you all this is because we went to boots and I asked the advice of one of the women who work on the Clinique counter. She tried a few on my face to test the colour match and then applied the right one. I looked in the mirror and thought "well, it looks like foundation", turned to His Lordship to ask his opinion to which he replied, "it makes you look radiant". Well.....

The finished article

This is the photo of the finished article as promised...



I love the paper even if no one else does, and I'm still really proud of all the work we put in. I'm hoping we can start the next set of rooms, but I'm guessing His Lordship won't be up for it!

It was my birthday yesterday and we had a bit of a party last night which I'm now paying for in spades, I guess this is what getting old does to you!

It's finished!!!

WOOOOOOOOOOO! WOOOOOOOOOOOO! I feel an enormous sense of achievement. Last night, at midnight, after hours of arguing and swearing we completed the room. It's now beautifully papered and painted. It's also clean and waiting to have everything put back into it. I think we've done a great job with the papering despite neither of us having done it before and the fact that we picked one with a very busy pattern. There is one part of it that isn't quite right, but you won't be able to see that because it's where the bed will live. The only bit I'm not entirely happy with is the paint finish. It seems I've rather ruined it with my painting over the crackle. It's worked in one sense in that I've covered the crackle, but it's left an impression of being painted over which is obvious.

Anyway, things I have learned about DIY....

1. There is no easy way around a job.
2. Painting is harder than it looks.
3. Papering is easier than everyone says.
4. People who put wallpaper on top of wallpaper shouldn't be allowed to own houses.
5. Get someone else in to do the work.

Snap, crackle, pop

Today has been mainly spent trying to cover up the cracking that seems to have infected the paintwork like a virus, it's all over and has appeared without much reason. A quick "google" reveals we aren't alone in this problem but unfortunately no one gives much in the way of ideas to rid ourselves of it. I've gone over it with MORE paint and a brush but I fear this is just going to result in patches that look weird when it's completely dry, it's already looking like that's exactly what I've tried to do. We've also had the gloss out on the skirting boards so now the house absolutely stinks!

All being well we do the papering tomorrow. I think that we're both a bit nervous about this as we really could end up messing the whole thing up terribly and neither of us really knows what we're doing, so it's gping to be a case of the blind leading the blind. Wish us luck!

Watching paint dry

It took longer than we thought for the plaster to dry so that's put us back a few days with the decorating. When the plaster finally did dry we then had to apply a coat of wallpaper paste to the plaster to seal it. This took us a solid three hours after work because we also had to clean all the plaster off EVERYTHING. It seems Joseph got plaster all over the skirting boards as well as the back of the door!.

Anyway, for those who haven't seen the problem they were covering up...



I have some of the finished wall, but they are on the Macbook so I'll post them when I get them off there.

We're now on our second coat of paint (buttermilk!) but we're getting problems with how the paint is drying, it's cracking in places but we don't know why.

Anyway, this is how it's starting to shape up...



The far wall is going to be papered, which we think will be done tomorrow, fingers crossed!

No more hole

It's gone, Joseph and his partner came yesterday and fixed the hole in the wall. It looks very nice although they couldn't take the radiator off as it (as usual) is as cheap as they come, but they've plastered as far as they could. I did get an electric shock off the light switch yesterday though, His Lordship said "Are you sure it wasn't a rough bit of plaster" in a patronising fashion. Then much to my amusement, he got a similar shock around half an hour later.

Now on to the decorating, we've decided to paint straight onto the wall, and I've decided on pink, there will be no democratic process! When I say pink though, it's more of a pinky brown and very pale, we're also toying with the idea of wallpaper, pink flowers (which sounds vile and isn't), His Lordship objected to it in the shop but once we'd held the sample to the wall he actually agreed would look lovely. Or at least as lovely as our decorating skills can muster. Did you know that it is now the fashion to paper patterns on just one wall and then paint a colour on the other three?! When gathering samples His Lordship took rather too much paper from one of the rolls, so much so that it looked like an entire roll, even he was embarrassed and put some of it back!

I listened to a brilliant programme on radio 4 about Anchovies, it was fascinating to learn how popular they've been for centuries. I love them, but I'm not entirely sure as I hate most other types of fish.

For those in America (he know's who he is) not thinking of voting for someone to be the next President for whatever foolhardy reason....think on this....If you don't vote for Obama, you run the risk of that vile woman Palin being elected and I don't think you should let that be on your conscience!!