The satisfaction of having one completely renovated room!
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So even when you think you have a room finished, and you’re just at the point where you can go and sit in it and close the door and pretend that the whole house looks like that one; there are always a few irritating little things that still need doing. It always seems to me that these things actually take much longer than all the work you’ve already done.
I was however determined to get all the finishing done in the front room this weekend. I made a list of all the things that I needed to do and set to work.
Firstly I wanted to replace the light switches and fittings. The fittings because they were ugly wrought iron things and the switches because they were dimmer switches which irritate me. I called in my electrician and left him to it while I got to work changing the door handles and latches. I’m really lucky that my brother in law is an electrician and is happy to help me out in exchange for a beer or two. He tells me he would probably have charged me about $150 to do these things for me if I wasn’t family, as they’re fairly small jobs.
As the existing door handles were horrid cheap brass ones (can you tell that I really, really hated every 'finish' in this house?) I decided to replace them with new nickel plated ones and to match them with new nickel toggle light switches.This is the old door handle; the picture was taken before the door was painted so you can see the horrible orange wood too.
And these are the handles that I replaced them with. I’m going to use these handles all the way through the house. I also took the opportunity to fit new latches at the same time as the existing ones where starting to stick and lovely as the front room now looks, I don't want to get stuck inside (as seems to happen on many a sitcom!).
My super electrician fitted my new light switch, these are also going to be used all the way through the house to match the door handles. It’s going to be done bit by bit as each room is done, but I think it’s going to look really good when it’s all finished. They may not be traditionally Victorian, but I really like them and after all that’s what is really important.
After that I turned my attention to the windows. My house is close enough to the road that people can see in , so I decided to go for wooden slated blinds and curtains. The blinds came from Ikea and were actually fairly easy to fit, but I really struggled with a curtain pole that would fit round the bay window. Eventually I managed to find a metal curtain rail, which is designed for bay windows. It has cuts in the corners so the metal can be bent more easily. To ensure I got a smooth curve on the rail, I heated it with a blowlamp before starting to bend it.
The final touch was the skirting boards. Not only had the sander knocked the skirting boards in places, there were still the two edges round the fireplace where the boards needed replacing. I mitred two corners on a 45 degree angle and then measured out the gaps that needed to be cut for the board to fit round the slate heath. Then I drilled a countersunk hole into each one and screwed them to the wall, before filling the holes and painting the boards. And now, with the exception of touching up the wall above the new skirting boards and the floor underneath them, the room is finally finished.
Curtains And Blinds Quotes
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