Decorating my butt off

As you can see I have never been very hot about covering stuff up while I paint. There are little smudges on the carpet in various corners, but mostly it all washes off in the end. I was determined to get to the end of the job so that I could actually enjoy being in the house, and maybe plant some stuff outside this year. Much debate has ensued about the kitchen. We had decided on yellow, but then my mind drifted to the pink spectrum and wanting something really bold. So we agreed on both (well to be honest not sure the girls cared that much)! But how to combine the two. Who wants just a plain old alternating walls thing? (It looks pretty messy but you get the idea):

Monkey suggested the diagonal lines (and we drew a plan of how to lay out the stripes), and I think it worked out fabulous. At the other end of the room I added the magnetic chalkboard paint, to create a notice board cum shopping list cum poetry collection (Monkey bought me revolutionary magnetic poetry for Christmas):

I am going to use the left overs to do the cupboard under the stairs, the only space currently unpainted.

At the front of the house I used my week off to finally get down to the rest of the living room. The back half had been completed last summer, transformed from this:

to this, including the lovely new curtains:

I did have to paint over the previous family's hight chart, that showed the growth of their kids for the years that they lived here. It was kind of sad, so I photographed it for posterity:

There was yet more orange to cover in the front:

down to the last tiny bit:

and more red to add:

though I had to mess up the other room in the process:

Tish and I swapped over the two storage units. She now has the big one in her room and the smaller white one came downstairs. I have stashed a load of stuff in the loft so that we can actually use the room, have all the craft stuff tidied away:

and a nice space in the middle to exercise in:

with a cosy nook by the radiator for people who feel the cold:

All in all I am very pleased with the outcome. I am glad we decided to treat it as one room, even though I have fabric to make a dividing curtain. It is still a bit of a dumping ground as there is no other space for the hoover and airers, but we will work on that. Little jobs remain to be completed: I realised I had not painted the space around the window in the back room, and I have plans to put up the mass of fairy lights in the front room ... but whatever, one of us might get ill so we have to isolate and then I'll have all the time in the world.