Blackvault's office redecoration

Soldato
Joined
5 May 2004
Posts
4,388
Location
Northern Ireland
At 37, I think it's high time to change the fact I've not done much DIY or decorating and so set myself the task of redecorating. Following a house move nearly 2 years ago, due to several factors, my partner and I haven't done much, if any decorating to make the house our home. Given I work from home I spend most of my day in the home office and have little motivation to sit and play guitar in the same room or fire up the PC and game. This is partially due to having been in the room for 8 hours, but mainly because it is not the nicest room to sit in. Hopefully, I can change that with a bit of redecorating.

The room is roughly 3m x 3m with a south/west facing window and is flooded with light. The window gives me a nice view of horses' feed and the washing line! I don't intend to replace the curtains but instead fit a roller blind and that will allow me to block the sun when needed, but not completely plunge the room into darkness.

The room was originally a bedroom and God knows why a chair rail is stuck around the outside. It is too small to be a dining room, where such a rail would be more usual, but the bungalow is only from the early 1980s and isn't a period feature. This will be coming off!

The previous owners left the pine wardrobe and lumbered us with it. The other two pieces of furniture came from the previous house and currently, aren't used other than to store my guitar cases or sit empty. The two Ikea units will be thrown out and the guitar cases will be stored in the attic, however, the pine wardrobe, looks like it could be dismantled and used in the stables. In place of the pine unit, I will fit a small sofa to sit on and play guitar, and place a small coffee table in front, to display a book or two and squeeze in a small corner lamp.

The Ikea wardrobe will be replaced by hanging guitars to show them off, along with putting up floating shelves for ornaments and a few Lego kits.
My computer rig and laptop will most likely stay in that location however I'll upgrade to a standing/sit desk when the funds allow. Depending on the size of the new desk, if I have room, I'll put a lamp standard beside it and the radiator to give me more light in that corner.

To make the room feel cosy and soften the hard surfaces, I will lift the laminate flooring and replace it with a dark-coloured carpet. I had also thought about ripping up the original skirting boards and replacing them with a higher more modern version, is it worth it?

Currently, I'm undecided about the colour of the room, however, I'm leaning towards a dark green on the wall with the guitars, and making it the "feature wall". The other three walls will be white/off-white or a lighter shade of the feature wall colour. What do you think?

The before:

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This post is mainly for me to catalogue my adventure but any thoughts or comments are welcome. I also thought, if @Ace Modder can show off his new hall, stairs, and landing, why can't I post about my redecorating?
 
I have a plasterer coming (dunno when) to tidy up the walls, so yesterday I had to start removing the chair rail and stripping the walls of paint. The chair rail was easily removed and good fun, however, the four layers of paint, were less so! Currently, we have white, red, blue, orange and mint green as the colours that the previous owner has previously painted the room. I'm finding the removal of the paint from the plaster hard work with a scraper, does anyone have any tips or tricks?

After a good few hours, this is the current process.
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Do I lift the skirting as well?

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Get a sparky in for more plug sockets.... You can never have enough plug sockets in a office :)
I hadn't thought of that. Currently, the two sockets seem fine, and honestly, the thought of tracking the walls, and spending a fair bit of the cost of having an electrician and then a plasterer come in, is off-putting.
No need to remove the skirting if you are going for carpet; unless you want to renew it to something a bit more bougie. Removing the paint will be a pain, but it is what it is. How comes you are getting a reskim? Looks alright to me...

Are you using a sharp 150mm scraper?
The only reason I would remove the skirting is to update it. Even something similar to this would freshen it up.
I had spoken to a plasterer and he said the options are a reskim or patching the holes/cracks. Having taken the wall back to the plaster I would agree it doesn't need a reskim, so most likely I'll not go for that option.
Yes, I'm using a sharp scraper. As I said in my first post, this is the first time doing any redecorating and it is an eye-opener with an amount of time and effort. There would most definitely be no 60-minute maker with the amount of paint needing to be removed! :p

As you have UPVC windows (i think) consider the clip in venetians, they are really quite nice for this sort of environment.

Like these.

Much nicer than a roller imo

If they arent then I would consider plantation type shutters in that room.
The windows are indeed UPVC and the only thing we've done to the house since moving in. Looking at those, it reminds me of an office. I'd thought of a roller blind because it would help soften the room, granted not as much as curtains. Although I will concede they look quick and easy to install. The plantation-style shutters, do look nice, but again they are hard material, Unless I've misunderstood how they work they don't offer me the ability to roll a blind down when the sun is shining in.
 
It has been a while since I posted. I've started the stripping but am struggling to get the 4 layers of paint, plus wallpaper off, see attached photos. So far this has taken me nearly 5-8 hours a day at the weekends and 2-3 hours most evenings for the past few weeks to get this far. I've been using a mixture of a heat gun and wallpaper steam with a scraper. Does anyone have any advice on how I can speed this up?

Scraping action

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How you getting on @Blackvault ?
I have been able to get in touch with a plasterer, no one would return voice mails, and he reckons a full skim is needed. Having chatted with him, he felt that I didn't need to have removed the paint, which made my heart sink as it took me weeks to do it when I had time. He'll be over in a few weeks to do it and quoted around £300 plus materials for him and another workman, which I think is reasonable.

Other than that, I've taken up the skirting but nothing else can be done until the plaster work is completed.
 
My plasterer came last weekend and reskimed the room and ceiling. He did a good tidy job. £300 for labour and £112 for materials in total.

It seems to have all dried out but I'll give it another week to dry before putting the mist coat on.

I went off to Dulux today and I think set on Proud Peacock for the feature wall and Jade White for the three others. The ceiling will be Absolute White.
 
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If your not super good then masking tape it and use a heavily loaded brush when doing the edge lines.
However I find if you use masking tape you can mini roller the edges as opposed to using a brush which is super quick and also matches rollers better than brushed on paint.
Thanks for the advice. I've not painted much before so I'll maybe go down the masking tape route.
The masking tape is peeled off once the paint is tacky, rather than fully dried, right?
 
Yeah best to get the tape off asap, it can dry on and pull off paint. Probably 30 mins after the final coat you will be good. Pull it away from the wet edge if that makes sense.

If your ceilings are not perfectly straight use the tape to create a visual straight line.
Having someone to help can make it easier as you can pull long lengths off at once and then push it down. Easier to create that straight edge.

Have you painted the walls already? Normally you work downwards!
No, I've not done the walls yet, but I thought it still might need to mask the wall/ceiling edges regardless. Am I wasting my time, if mask it now?
 
It's been a while since I've made an update.

Well, the room is nearly finished.
I coped out and got a man in to supply and install the skirting boards. He had them in, within 45 minutes and I knew it would have taken me a lot longer to do that. Maybe the next room, I'll have a go.
My fiancée's parents were over to celebrate our recent engagement and her dad helped me fit and pump the new sandblasted and painted radiator back in. By and large, it went well, however during the pressure back on, the expansion tank's pressure value blew and streamed water into our kitchen ceiling. It turned out that the blow-off pipe wasn't routed to the outside and firing the water into our attic. We did get it sorted with minimal damage to the ceiling and light fittings in the kitchen.

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The carpet was installed yesterday and was an offcut that happened to be only 1-2 feet larger than the room, which was ideal.

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Yesterday evening I quickly threw together the Flexispot E5 table, I bet the misses will be pleased it's no longer sitting in our bedroom! :) With basic furniture placed, I can at least work and play the guitar in the room.
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I've still got a fair bit more to do, to finish the room. I have a coffee table and sideboard currently on order from the Range and awaiting delivery. We need to decide on the sofa bed, fit blinds and hang some pictures and shelving. I had thought about hanging some of my guitars, and will probably do so, however, I think I'll live with the room first before committing to drilling the hangers into those newly plastered walls.

In total redecorating the room cost around £1100
Replastering - £412
Carpet/fitting - £425
Paint - £121
Skirting/fitting - £165
Repainting radiator - £60

The office desk was £400 on its own but that is a price I can live with given it's an investment, as I work from home.
We'll not think how much the guitars cost me! :cry:


There is always talk that I've to start painting our bedroom as well. :rolleyes:
 
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