It's funny how you can live with something mediocre for so long and be fine with it; but as soon as you become aware of something better, it becomes unbearable. So it was for me with our sun lounge. It felt very cathartic to spend the week purging the room of everything that I'd overlooked, but which had been dragging down the house for so long. This is especially true because our sun lounge is open plan to our kitchen/dining room, so any changes made here have a huge impact on the rest of that space too.
If you missed part one, you can see the ugly before pictures, learn what the One Room Challenge is all about, and read my plans for the room in this post: One Room Challenge: Sun Lounge (Week 1)
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Preparation
As tempting as it is to just dive headlong into a new project, it's always worthwhile doing the proper preparatory work first. I started by emptying everything out of the room.
It's great to have a clear space in which to work ... but it does mean that the rest of the house now looks like this:
Having furniture squeezed in all over the place doesn't exactly make for easy living, but then you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, right?
Walls
I started preparing the surfaces by sealing that old water stain to prevent it showing through the fresh paint.
I also filled and sanded all the holes and settling cracks in the walls.
Woodwork
Next, it was time to prep the woodwork. I cleaned off all the excess sealant from around the windows using an old plastic card and tweezers.
The thing I hate most about our house is this white deal (spruce) wood. Not only do I dislike the look of it, but it's also completely unsuitable for the kind of applications it has been used for in our home. For example, it's a terrible idea to use it on windowsills because the knots leak sappy resin when heated by the sun streaming through the glass. In the past, that resin has bubbled through the paint I've applied. So this time, I applied a thin coat of wood filler over the knots and sanded it to a smooth finish. I'm hoping that will seal it adequately.
This part of the job was about as glamorous as you'd imagine!
Yep, that's me. Hi! *waves*
All the sanding makes quite a mess, so next I had to clean every surface in the room.
Primer
Finally, I was ready to start seeing some changes happening in this room! I masked off all the surfaces I wanted to protect.
Many woods contain tannin that will cause staining through paint so I use Zinsser B.I.N., a shellac-based primer and sealer, to prevent that. Because the wood was previously sealed with a product that was also shellac-based, I didn't have to sand the wood before priming it. Win!
Ceiling
I moved onto the ceiling next, and gave it two coats of white paint.
Paint
Then, I finally got to put some colour on the walls! As I mentioned last week, I chose a Colourtrend colour match for Farrow & Ball's Dimpse.
Already, this has made a massive difference to the feel of the room and, indeed, to the adjoining dining room and kitchen. It really is amazing what a new coat of paint can do!
I'm looking forward to see how all the guest participants and featured designers got on over the past week, but here's my progress so far.
TO-DO LIST:
- Clear and clean out the room.
- Paint the ceiling.
- Paint the woodwork.
- Add the beadboard panelling to the feature wall.
- Paint the walls.
- Sew four Roman blinds.
- Sew a pair of curtains for the patio doors.
- Replace the curtain pole.
- Buy and make new scatter cushions.
- Introduce texture through the accessories.
- Replace the plant stand with a new side table.
- Add lots of greenery (faux because of Hubby's allergies) to help link to the garden.
- Find new artwork for the feature wall.
This coming week, I plan to finish painting the woodwork and also add the beadboard panelling to the archway wall. It currently looks like this, and shows what a poor choice that beige paint was next to the blue kitchen/dining room. I can't wait for it to change!
The panelling is something I'm incredibly excited about, so do join me back here next week to see how it looks! And, as I did this week, I'll be sharing my progress in my Instagram stories @thehousethatwill as I go along ... you know, so you can feel like you're really here in the thick of this plastic-clad sun lounge with me!
See you next week!
Related posts:
One Room Challenge: Sun Lounge Reveal
One Room Challenge: Sun Lounge (Week 5)
One Room Challenge: Sun Lounge (Week 4)
One Room Challenge: Sun Lounge (Week 3)
One Room Challenge: Sun Lounge (Week 1)
One Room Challenge: Guest Ensuite Reveal
