Loft Decorating, Episode 11

Busy day today. As usual, a good chunk of time was spent preparing things for subsequent things to happen. Because there are no simple jobs, as we are all very aware by this point!

The end goal for today was to get the last of the woodwork painted. First, I needed to move all the crap I'd dumped on that side of the room. I also treated myself to a bin bag for all the rubbish - this made a considerable difference as it had been strewn across the floor.

Once I'd revealed the skirting board I also revealed the need to sand it all down. There was one section that was particularly dodgy. The join between two lengths of skirting were not that well aligned and the floor had a ridge of glue sticking out of it.

The glue scrapes off (eventually) but the skirting needed a good scrub with a variety of sandpaper grades. Of course, that also took the primer off so it needed a new base coat before it could be painted that lovely shade of green.

Turning my attention to the remaining windowsill, I noticed that there was a considerable gap at one end. I filled this in as best I could with wood filler. It's not perfect but it is a lot better now.

Then I hoovered up all the dust, wiped down the surfaces and got painting.

While this dried I managed to get a get-ahead task completed - I fitted the carpet grippers along the walls where I'd finished painting.

At this point I had to switch from handyman to parent for a few hours. This gave the wood filler extra time to dry. So once all the kids were abed, I could sand down that edge of the windowsill and give it a first coat too.

Last time, I found painting upside down to be less fun than it sounds so I went for masking tape around the windowsill just to make life easier.

That's it for today. I'll take the masking tape off in a bit, before it dries properly and ends up peeling off paint I want left in place. Hoping to get the remaining coats of paint on tomorrow, to give me Friday to carpet. That may be ambitious but I'm committing to going to go for it.