Earning my stripes...

We have lived in this Flat (apartment for those who don't know what i mean) for 6 years, and i have painted over the wood chip paper in the hallway too many times. I pleaded with mike to let me tackle it and get the horrible stuff off the walls... he said YES! wooo

This is what it looked like when i started scraping it off... ugh...

Yuk!
Now i expected the walls to be awful, i expected holes and chips in the plaster underneath.. i mean that's why people use wood chip right?  
But apart from holes in the walls that my dogs kindly made one day... down to the brick work.. i don't know what they were trying to do the bastards! ahh ha ha - The walls were in really good shape! 

Looking good!
We went around and filled in the small holes to make the top part of the wall as perfect as we could as we intended to just paint it if we could get it looking decent enough.


 The next step was to sand the walls down once everything hardened, the best bit of the job i think as you get to see the finished piece. It looked really smooth after, however i decided to go ahead and lining paper it anyway to get the complete smooth effect... i used 1000g lining paper from Wilkinson's which was £2.97 a roll, i still have half a roll left which is handy for when we start the bedroom. 

Not bad for a first attempt at wall papering!
Forgot to mention that in between sanding and papering the walls we painted all the wood work (although didn't paint the slatted cupboard door as we're planning on replacing it with something more modern) 
We even painted the inside of our front door which is was dark brown, we sanded it down to roughen it up, then used Dulux satin wood to brighten it up. I'm so glad we did as it makes a HUGE difference in brightening up our dark windowless hallway. (the Doors, and rest of the wood work need another coat which is to be done this weekend)

Wow brightness! 
The next step is the one which made the biggest difference... the bottom part of the walls earned their stripes...

ignore the slatted door.. yuk

I think they waited long enough to look this amazing!
I cant believe how much of a difference this has made. The walls are so bright now, and it looks like we spent loads of money on it all... However this is the break down of cost.

Lining paper x 1 roll - £2.97
Wall paper x1 roll - £7.98 (was reduced by 20% at Wilkinson's)
Dulux Satin wood paint - £16.98
Wall Filler - £3
Paint brushes for Glossing - £1.85 (we chuck them after as they get ruined)
Can of Plasticote spray - £5

Total = £37.38

We already had the sandpaper, scrapers, Stanley knife, white paint , masking tape and dust sheets from previous DIY jobs.

Check back tomorrow for the wall accessories i found...



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