Update On The World's Slowest Room Renovation

We have paint on the walls! And it's looking so pretty. Man, this room has been a long slog. We worked hard to get it as perfect as we could though, including restoring all the original imperfect 130 year old woodwork (skirting boards, window frame and cornice).

I'm in charge of painting the edges. I don't use tape because I find it doesn't work effectively on wonky Victorian walls and skirting boards (not even Frog tape). Instead, I paint the line by hand, first with a fine artist's brush, and followed up with a second coat using an angled Purdy brush. I prefer to paint the woodwork first and then the wall edge second, because emulsion seems to go much more cleanly on top of gloss paint rather than the other way round.

Penny is in charge of quality control.

Andre is in charge of rolling on the emulsion. We chose two colours - Dulux Javan Dawn 2 for the wall on the right (this will be the background colour for Natalia's mural) and Dulux Javan Dawn 5 for all the other walls.

So the room has gone from this:

To this:

And from this:

To this:

We're so happy with how the colour has turned out. Lots of folk seem to rate Farrow & Ball because the colours change in the light, but Dulux paint does exactly the same thing and looks gorgeous. Natalia's turquoise colours are almost exactly the same shade as the blues on Eva's cushions, so I'm going to use some of the leftover fabric to make Natalia's beanbags, which will provide a nice link between the two bedrooms. And of course Natalia is going to have a handpainted white-on-deep turquoise mural to match her sister's. I'm busy designing it right now - she's going to have an English country garden theme, with a cottage, apple tree, duck pond, ladybirds, chickens, butterflies, caterpillars, fox, owl, badger and so on.

We also have to oil the floors - finally! I'm so excited to get this done.