Sunday and Monday's work

Not a lot to be seen here as it is mostly second coats of paint.
Pictures in order of appearance:


Bedroom - papered across the doorway.  Can't do the third wall as I need to make a chimney breast which means I have to buy wood and also a fireplace - suffering from the knock-on effect.

Kitchen with the (mock) lincrusta in place.  The gap on the back wall is for the sink and cooker which will have tiles behind.  I found a site today and copied a tile I liked and scaled it down and then repeated it endlessly.  I hope to be able to figure out how to print it on to glossy paper.  The test piece (ordinary printing) looked excellent.  There will be a dado rail along the top of the paper.  

As you can see Ellen has had the chimney breast bricked up when the range was taken out.  In these sort of Victorian terraces it was usual to have shared chimneys.  You would have a chimney breast running through one side of your house for you and your neighbour and then the other side of your house your walls would be flat because your neighbour on that side had the chimney breast in their property.  

Sometimes you will see lots of gaps at the tops and bottoms of walls.  I am trying to leave some unpainted wood for when I come to stick on the various trims.

Salon.  The only room I have managed to get three walls papered.  This is taken after cutting out the arch of course.  The trim for that has become an issue.  If I get a trim made it will encroach on the cornice that I want to put around this room... soooo???

The shop.  Not sure if this shows you anything but for my records it is the second coat of paint which is an improvement on the first but not perfect.  The rough edges at the top will be covered by a paper border/frieze.

Parlour.  Pretty birds and berries paper.  I was a bit fussed about this one as it came up in a mass of bubbles (!).  Luckily it did dry out and shrink back OK.  There is a painted frieze in the cream background colour.  This room will have cornice and picture rail.  Again the third wall has been left because I need to build the fireplace.  I am being even more ambitious with this one as I also want to make built in cupboards either side of the fireplace.  Ken and I are old enough to remember these!  We aren't actually Edwardian but it seems they lingered on a long time.  Again, in this photo there is another doorway is papered over.

The workroom.  This one just needs the picture rail trim.  Thank heavens a room with three walls tackled.

This room leads neatly to today (Monday).

Ken did a tour of inspection this morning and asked if I had taken the roof off to do the top rooms (it isn't glued on yet).  Did I heck.  

I laboriously worked out where to cut this border so  the pattern would match in the corners and then I realised just how difficult it was to place a long thin strip of wet paper right up against the join between the ceiling and the wall without wrinkling, ripping or slanting it.  With all that in play the pattern match went out the window.  Needless to say when I removed the roof this morning to have a look I realised how easy it would have been if I'd thought to do that yesterday.

This is my Monday contribution - the lincrusta.  Following the not removing the roof debacle I went on to do the first coat of green paint on the paper, using a brush.  It was truly awful.  Strike two and the day had only just started.  When it was dry (and still looking dreadful) I masked of the whole area with paper and masking tape and gave it a second coat with a roller.  What a relief, the paint finish is so much better.  The only couple of problems I now have is that it seems to have pretty much obliterated the raised pattern in the paper and I have no idea how to put a shine on the matt paint, which is the whole point of having lincrusta - i.e. a wipe down surface.  Please can anyone tell me what I use to 'varnish' the surface of matt emulsion to get a shine?  On wood I know I can use liquid wax and buff it up but I have no idea how this would work on painted paper.