The Interior DIYer
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Meeting people online + my history with the internet

This past weekend I played host to two fabulous UK bloggers I met online. Yes, I invited internet strangers into my home. When I write it as bluntly as that, it sounds incredibly dodgy. But in reality it isn’t and [thank god] it wasn’t. I think the internet is a very different place nowadays; if you’re actively on social media or if you’re a blogger, the idea of meeting up with people you meet online is now normal.

My first experience interacting with another person on the internet was in roughly 1995. I was about 10 years old and I was hanging out in my friend Megan’s kitchen. Megan was allowed to go on The Internet by herself – this was a HUGE deal. She logged on and directed us straight to a chat room that she frequented. A chat room. My mind was blown. She started messaging a guy she had chatted with before, but had never met in ‘real life’. It was insane. We all chatted for a while and then the guy sent us a jpg of a rose. A ROSE YOU GUYS. OH MY GOD. 

I was so excited. When I got home I told my dad all about it. 

My dad proceeded to give me the most undiluted level of stink-eye I have ever received. And rightly so because it was creepy AF. I pleaded to be allowed to use the internet, and I was met with a firm ‘NO‘. There’s really no better way to convince your parents to let you use the internet than telling them about a man who just sent you a heavily pixelated rose. 

I was eventually allowed to use the internet by myself. But for years, I’ll be honest, I judged people for meeting other people online. It sounded so lame. What’s wrong with you that you can’t find friends or a partner in real life? I can safely say I have royally changed my tune.
This past weekend Maria of Dinki Dots and Kimberly of Swoon Worthy flew over for 3 days and I have to say, it’s been a long time since my face hurt that much from laughing. I had it in my head that I should be the ultimate Dublin tour guide and show them the sites, but the truth is we ended up falling from one place to the other, talking complete and utter nonsense. We were to meet with Hilda of Hilda by Design on our first night, but we were too shattered and in stead retired to our onesies. Soon, Hilda. SOON! 
Just know that if I pick you up from the airport, I will embarrass you.
I had met Maria before at Blogtacular in London last year. I knew she was alright because she didn’t fillet me with a machete in the hotel bathroom. But don’t let her sweet manner and posh accent fool you – she is as hilarious and inappropriate as they get; just how I like them. I hadn’t met Kimberly before, but the moment we met it was like we had known each other for years. Probably because we actually had, virtually. Kimberly is wild, hilariously honest and has stories that make me wish I could have built a camp fire just to listen to her all night. 

I think the most surreal thing about this weekend was having Kimberly and Maria walk into our apartment and know where everything was, be able to recite projects back to me, and know so much about our home. It was so weird but hilarious. Like I had my own really polite stalkers.

That’s the wonderfully strange thing about bloggers – we put it out there. Not everything, but we get to know each other through our different styles and personalities. You find bloggers you click with. You realize you have a lot in common and you have a penchant for inappropriate comments. You follow each other for years and then sometimes you meet up and I’ve got to say, if the opportunity arises for you to meet an online friend, go for it. Make plans and make it happen because, as cheesy as it sounds, you only live once and you need a weekend like the one I had. 
I consider Kimberly and Maria to be really good friends of mine. Yeah, we met online about a hundred years ago. They aren’t axe murderers. They are wonderful and they’re exactly how I thought they’d be. Bring on #DrunkInteriorsRound2.

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Home Improvements

I’ve had a variety of projects going on over the past few weeks, all of which are / will be finishing up shortly. Some have been minor yet long overdue [and sometimes giant] updates to our apartment. Nothing particularly exciting as they’re mostly paint related. 
I repainted all the skirting boards and doors in our apartment, and this morning at 04:00 I repainted our hallway [husband had to be in work really early, so I was awake and figured I’d strike while the iron was hot]. All the boring painting jobs have needed to be done for 4+ years now, so while it’s not a big change to the actual design, to us it’s a huge difference. Even husband commented last night “it feels like we just moved in again!” In a good way. 

This week in particular I have the perfect excuse to spruce up our spare bedroom a little bit as we’ll have 2 very important guests. But first, I need to change the battery in that tiny clock. It ran out before I met husband … Nine years ago. It’s been stuck at 07:13:43 for long enough.
I picked up some second hand furniture and fittings for our master bedroom makeover, hemmed a pair of giant curtains, removed the awkward radiator from the middle of our bedroom wall, and souped up our chest of drawers to house our TV accessories [the latter two were completed by Dad DIYer]. I’ve also started rearranging and hanging more artwork in our apartment, which is something I’m terrible at doing. I have about 50 picture frames, all of which are in a cupboard gathering dust. 

I’ve also had a chance to sit down and do some small projects I’ve had in mind for a long time. I sewed a cute bauble trim onto our bathmat [as seen in the first picture] and I’m in the process of cross stitching a cheeky number for the bathroom. It’s a bit risque, which is fine in person, but I’m not sure about how well it would translate online. We’ll see. I might share it as it’s a bit of fun. 

It’s another cracking day here in Dublin so when you’re finished a day of work, you feel like there’s still time to go out and enjoy yourself. I’ll be trying my hand at foraging later this evening. Hopefully I pick the right stuff! xx A
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Tips for painting doors and skirting boards

I agree, while today’s blog post is not the most riveting of posts, I was asked by a couple of people if I would share some of the tips and tricks I gathered while repainting all of the doors and skirting boards in our apartment. As I did have more than a handful of lessons I learned along the way, I thought hey, I might be able to help someone else who’s daunted by the idea of repainting doors and skirting boards.

To give a recap, the doors and skirting boards throughout our apartment were painted in high gloss paint 15+ years ago when our block was built. Needless to say, the paint did not take to the idea of aging well. Worse than Meg Ryan and Madonna in fact. The high gloss paint aged to an eye watering ‘chicken fat’ yellow throughout our entire apartment [I’ll be doing a complete hallway reveal soon so you can witness all it’s original yellowedness].

I had enough one day and approached our landlord about repainting the aged paint. He agreed [YUS!] and I started in October by repainting the worst effected room; the bathroom. I started tackling the rest of our apartment after Christmas and as of this morning, I have only two doors left. Here’s what I learned along the way …

– Paint one door or one room of skirting boards at a time. Otherwise you’ll crash and burn and never finish the job.
– Remove the hardware [aka, door handle, escutcheon etc]. Do not attempt to paint around them. It will look really, really bad and be really obvious.
– Sand the doors / skirting boards with medium grade sandpaper then wipe them down with a rag very lightly dipped in turpentine.
– Store the turpentine rag in an old plastic lunch box [tightly sealed] as you’ll need it again for the next door.
– Be careful while sanding. I accidentally sanded my knuckles off a couple days before I had to be a hand model. Don’t do that. It’s really painful if you plan on bending your fingers at all during the following week.

– I used 2 cans of Dulux’s Stay White with Aquawash Satinwood paint to repaint all the skirting boards and doors in our apartment. It’s water based and I wildly prefer water based paint.
– I added a little bit of water to the paint so it was less thick. This will only work with water based paint.
– I used a wide brush for painting the doors and a thin brush for the skirting boards.
– Don’t overload your brush with paint. Thin coats win.
– When applying the first coat, start from the top. Remember, thin coats. Otherwise gravity will point out your cakey flaws and drips will form.
– Allow the first coat of paint to dry for at least 5 hours. Preferably leave it for the day.
– When adding your second / final coat of paint, ADD IT QUICKLY AND EVENLY. I cannot stress how important this is. You MUST add the paint EVENLY in one uniform go otherwise the paint will dry unevenly and you’ll be left with dry patches and you’ll have to start over. If you do end up with dry patches, it’s okay. It happened to 3 of the 9 doors I painted until I realised what I was doing wrong, then started painting them quicker and evenly. Once I did this, the doors were perfect. If you have mistakes[see below], just wait and start a fresh coat the next day. Remember it’s better to do it right then leave it half-assed.

– Got paint on your wood floor? Don’t worry, so did I. I used a palette and scraped it off once it was dry and swept it away. Easy peasy.
– To save having to wash your paint brushes each time, simply wrap your brushes in clingfilm and leave in the cupboard and unwrap for when you paint the next door / skirting board. I stored mine for up to 2 weeks.
– Painting the skirting boards was MUCH easier. I still sanded and wiped them with turps, but I didn’t have to wait as long between coats of paint. I actually found it quite relaxing and the most rewarding as I think discoloured skirting boards are much like a guy in a suit wearing wildly innapproriate shoes; it’s fine until you look all the way down and once you catch that tiny detail, your eyes want to fall out.

I’m not an expert at painting doors and skirting boards, but I learned a lot while painting the 9 doors, front and back, throughout our apartment. I did learn some tricks and how to recover gracefully from the mistakes I made, so I hope the above was at the very least helpful to those of you looking to update a door or two and now know what to look out for.

Happy Friday, homies and I hope you enjoy your long weekend this weekend, laden with chocolate xx A