This last week, we did something really exciting: we had both of our spare bedrooms plastered.
It’s a pretty momentous occasion for us really, as it means we only have one room left to replaster in the whole house: the hallway & landing. And that’s a big deal.
It’s an odd feeling having plastering done again. I wish I just had smell-o-vision to try and explain it better but anyone who’s decorate their home will be familiar with that damp smell of freshly troweled plaster. That scent that’s almost cold in nature and feels dry in the air from the dust. When we bought our house and had the lounge and master bedroom plastered in the first month, I inwardly complained about the disgusting smell that came with it, but over the years I’ve become really fond of it. It’s almost become nostalgic and the smell just takes me back to when we moved in and had such big plans for making this downtrodden pile of bricks into our family home.
I’d be lying if I said that the job hasn’t added another tiny disruption to our daily life. After all, we’ve had to move all of the contents from Bedroom 2 and Bedroom 3 either into our bedroom or in the lounge. That poor lounge will one day be used for relaxing and not just for storage, I swear!
Below are some brief before & afters of the 2 rooms and whilst it’s not the flowers in vases or beautiful artwork type of pictures you’ll find on other blogs, this is how decorating looks to me. At least for now. Come back next week to what big plans we have for these rooms.
Bedroom 2
As the adjoining wall to the bathroom was practically falling off due to some heavy banging when we renovated, it was in dire need of being re-done. We had issues with chipboard wallpaper on the ceiling. Once we moved into the house, we spent days removing the horrible stuff from every wall. Not just in this room. The WHOLE HOUSE. I remember steaming that ceiling and it would drip yellow from years of built up tobacco and goodness knows else. And still it remains. We couldn’t get it off. Our fantastic plasterers recommended that they add a layer of browning to the ceiling and then plaster over as this would adhere better. And they were right! And here it is. To everyone else, probably pretty dull (sorry everyone!) picture of brown brown brown. We’ve started moving some furniture back into the room and I’m super excited to get using it properly for the first time ever! To me, it’s the fresh slate we’ve so long waited for. We don’t have anything for this room yet so paint and flooring will be first up on the list. All colour recommendations welcome!
Before
After
Bedroom 3
Very similar situation but for those who have been following our progress on Bedroom 3 (click here for this), Joe had already taken the room back to brick months ago. The plaster needed to go due to a previous bout of mould – before we moved in phew! He then boarded the room himself which saved us some much needed pennies as it’s then less work we need to pay the plasterers for. The deep brown of the plaster makes the room look incredibly small, but trust me, this is plenty of room for what we need. In this ‘after’ picture Joe was so speedy, before I could take a picture of the finished plaster, he’d already painted a base coat of emulsion. Amazing! Thankfully for this room, it’s just the plastering we’ve been waiting for, too. We already have the underlay, carpet and paint ready to go. I’m hoping it will be ready for furniture within the next few weeks. Yippee.
Before
After
For reference, anyone in Manchester looking for a plasterer, I can’t recommend WG Plastering highly enough. They were the loveliest lads and did a significantly better job than any other plasterers we’ve worked with so far. Once we’ve gathered up enough cash, we’ll be having them back to do the hall, stairs and landing, no doubt about it. I was even poorly one day when they were here and the plasterer checked on me to make sure I was okay and asked if could get me anything. I mean, how nice is that?
