So it’s week 2 of lockdown and you start to get bored, what do you do? Obviously pick up the paintbrushes and start tackling the hall!

It all started with a cheap nasty Gloss paint and the desire to finally say goodbye to the non white paint work. That was it, Just repaint the woodwork and radiators the previous owners had painted in varying shades.

However, why stop there?

So out comes the sandpaper, the paints and of course the paintbrushes! We started with sanding all the dodgy cheap nasty Gloss off the door frames. Then the banister, rails and spindles.

I honestly couldn’t believe how well we got up the stairs Railings all came up. despite having been poorly painted, stained and varnished we got it all to come up really well.

  • First one done!
  • Slowly getting there
  • Nearly finished!

Unfortunately once sanded we noticed the Newel Post was in a really bad shape, it was too badly damaged to be safe enough to leave exposed (splintered) So this was Primed and painted with the doors.

primer going on.
Base coat
Little helpers working hard at work
one of the finished doors drying ready to hang.
finished doors hung back in place

Tackling the Hall Walls

So we had actually done a first rough coat prior to Sanding down all the wood when we did our first coat of Gloss on the doors 5 days prior to the real start of the hall. Just enough to cover the colour we inherited. It was long after finishing the rest of the house that we actually finished the Hall in the June!

  • Jessica helping out
  • concentration as she rollers up to the cutting in
  • Jessica had done the cutting in around the Radiator
  • 2 thin coats of primer
  • Finished for now

Hold up….Tackling the hall take 2!

So after a rather long break since doing the first coats on the walls back in April, Hit the woodwork in May we now come to finish the Hall. Starting with repairing the upstairs walls around Emily’s bedroom door.

When we moved in Emily’s bedroom door frame had been completely destroyed and then boxed in and a sliding door hung and hidden under more boxing to hide an other bad job.

Behind this harmless looking door was a collection of cut corners and DIY don’ts.

Therefore when we came to replace the worn our sliding mechanism we found some of the disasters they had hidden.

  • shortly after moving in the sliding door stopped working and needed replacing
  • When we put up the new mechanism we had already spotted issues
  • but we manged eventually to get it up
  • new slider up but the door didnt fit so off Duncan went to sort
  • Luckily having to cut the door down further gave us chance to straighten the cut lol

In a way before we started the hall we knew Emily needed a new lighter door. Removing that horrid chuck of wood caused chaos! When we unscrewed the two pieces behind these above the door was all rubble. There was no actual wall. So we had to stop tackling the hall and instead had to Tackle Emily’s door frame!

Out comes the hammers…..

  • It started with a simple hammer to remove a few pieces of wood.
  • Emily did amazing with helping
  • the wood came away far to easily
  • because behind it was crumbling
  • Because the hollow breeze blocks hadn’t been prepared
  • or properly sealed.
  • over all it left a mess.

We had to stop work at this point because the Cinder block ends needed attention.

  • Duncan used a Concrete mix to make up a neat finish on either side of the door frame.
  • Once this was dry I had to Plaster the damaged areas.
  • Then once dry it needed to be sanded down.
  • Then we had to rebuild the wooden door surround back up.
  • Re placing the previously removed casings wasn’t an option because the top foot above frame was rubble!, so we had to make it all a new.

So once all of this was done we may have got a little side tracked and completed Emily’s Room before finishing the hall!

Some time later……..Finishing the Hall

Anyway eventually we finished priming the new plaster and painting all the hall. We plan for a mural on the stairs wall. However, while we plan that we decorated with a random selection of family snaps. I love the finished result in their card frames from Amazon.

For the life of me, I cannot find any pictures of our finished hall! and we are now (February 2023) preparing to paint the mural. I will add them when I find them!

If you wish to follow our families DIY you can here. If you want to see what else we get up to during this lockdown you can find them here.