Four years ago when I repainted our living room I chose Crown Paints swans a’swimming paint in an attempt to tone down and make the horrid yellow paint on the doors and skirting boards less obvious. In my defense, the monumental task to simply paint all the doors and skirting boards WHITE didn’t occur to me until years later, so I basically lathered the living room in beige. It was fine. But now it isn’t really.
Since I’m partial to dark wine colours, the beige-y walls didn’t compliment them very well and it gave off a feel of being dirty. You may think from the photo above that our living room looks not too bad. Well, that’s because that’s the after picture. This is the before …
The storage heaters in our apartment cause smoke damage to all of the walls, particularly so in the living room. Due to the vent being in this corner of the room, in the winter all the hot air tends to collate in this corner, hence the staining being so bad. It’s only once you really look at it that you realise how bad it is.
So in my recent burst of painting, I decided to also repaint the living white. It’s a daunting task as our living room is on the big side, so I broke it down and painted it one wall at a time, one week at a time. Because to be honest, the idea of painting such a large room in one go is stressful for me. So I figured hey, why not just do one wall at a time?
First up, the small wall behind the single seater couch. Goodbye horrid heater stains.
After two coats of paint and a couple of days, I tackled the wall behind our TV next …
So far, I’ve only painted these two walls, but they’ve already made such a difference. There are things I need to change, such as the TV cable, spray paint the vent which is glaringly yellow now that the walls are white, and one thing I’m certainly avoiding mentioning to people in person, but I’ll say it here. The ceiling. It’s discoloured from years of storage heater ‘smoke’. It’s only obvious how discoloured the ceiling is once I point it out. Depending on how long we end up staying there, I may. May. May end up painting the ceiling, but it’s the absolute last thing on my list. I have an idea how awful painting a ceiling would be. So let’s pretend it looks great, yeah?
I’m itching to mix things up in our living room now that it has some clean walls by rotating the accessories we have to give our living room a newer feel. It’s been locked in this layout for about 4 years so it’s high time to freshen it up.
But for now, Mr. Murray is pleased.
Also featured – Bill Murray print – crow globe
This looks so bright and fresh in the white! That last picture of my mate Bill looks so good with that clean white background – love it!
One wall at a time is a good method. When I was in my flat, I once painted my living room in two halves – moved everything to one half and painted two walls, then another day moved stuff across and painted the other half. I found it made it a lot less stressful and chaotic!
xx
That's completely it Maria! I think for me it's a case that I really hate things being messy for long periods of time. This way, only one section of a room is chaotic for a couple of hours and then I put everything back in place. I get completely overwhelmed if I dive in too deep and have to get everything back to normal in the same day. I have to finish what I start, so this way I'm left feeling less exhausted!
End rant 😉
It really does look better already! And i just LOVE the Bill Murray art. Where did you get it from? I'd love one of Joanna Lumley – odd choice I know, but I just adore her x
Thanks Karen! I actually got the Billy Murray print from a Dublin event especially for The Man With No Manager, but you can order the print now directly from Sean's Society6 shop. He's seriously talented. I hope that helps!
^ It's not obvious, but each are linked in my comment above. Hoverrrrrr.
Oh it's looking so bright and fresh in there!! And I feel ya on the ceilings – I need to repaint my kitchen (ceiling included) and even though it's not as big of an issue as a living room, I'm dreading it. I like your method!! Makes sense to me and yes, Billy is looking very happy and smug with himself! xxx
Ughghgg, I don't even want to acknowledge the ceiling. I finished painting the last wall white earlier this week and it's so lovely! Until you look up. And then it's like, vom. But yes to one wall at a time! xx