Freebie Decorating

I made a plan when at my sister's house to try and get the decorating of the house finished by the time we have been in the house a year. I don't want to project to just hang there for several years, with the piles of decorating stuff occupying the kitchen side and window sill. The front half of the living room is a bit bogged down with stuff so I decided to tackle the hallway. The money situation is not that good so decorating on the cheap became the way to go. As a result I decided to bring out all the bits of left over colour from the bedrooms. Tish's bedroom colour had the most left so it has gone down the hall, up the stairs and along the landing. The orange that dominated the downstairs took a couple of coats of undercoat but it has covered beautifully.

 I took the white up the side wall to keep the space from being too dark.

Tish and I picked out this fabulous bright red for the bannister on our first trip to B&Q. It is oil based so much more troublesome to apply and dry. 

I was not worried about whether it would clash with the purples:

On the landing I used the much smaller bits left over from mine and Monkey's paints:

And the art wall that we had started in the last house has become something more permanently fixed to the wall:

And having invested about £10 on some charity shop art books we have gradually covered the gap between the colours over the last week or so. It may be protected with varnish at some point, but not having small children any more means it shouldn't get picked at and vandalised:

 The ceiling was a bit of a challenge, but I didn't fall down the stairs once:

This was 2.5 litres of satinwood that has so far done all the woodwork in the house. It finally expired so the bedroom doors and frames have not been finished, and the cupboard on the landing may yet get the bright red. The panelling round the upstairs bannister is not done ... but you know what, I am not beating myself up about it, and will get around to finishing over the next couple of weeks.

My new favourite painting, it is called 'After the bath, woman drying her left foot' by Edgar Degas.