Outsourcing the decorating

This is what we look like most of the time now. Glamorous, yes? This is what happens when you refuse to get other people in to do the decorating. 

We did relent a little this week though - my sister very kindly hopped on a train and came over to help us paint the spare room. 

Plemty of people have offered to help over the last few months, and usually we've said no. We really don't want to seem ungrateful - we're just not very sociable DIY-ers. When a job is straightforward (like painting an empty room), it's fun to have others in to help, but most of our jobs haven't been like that. 

Take this week, for example. Last Monday night after work, I decided the time had come to replace the bathroom door, which is too small for the frame, and will be going on the spare room. We have a new door, so I hoped it'd be a straight swap. 

Old door - note the space inside the frame and the extra wood on the left

The old door came off easily (hooray!) and I tested the new one just to make sure it would fit. I don't think it will come as any surprise that it didn't. 

Theoretically, the door was exactly the same size as the frame - but the frame isn't quite straight, and isn't quite the same size all the way round. No problem, I thought, I'll just neaten the edge of the frame a little. ​

Much swearing ensued, a trip to buy a new set of chisels, and seven days later the door has been attached  (no thanks to me, I might add), but didn't actually close, so is now removed again.

It hasn't exactly been a sociable job, and most of them have been like this. We're quite aware that we're not that much fun to be around in the face of minor house-fixing fiascos, and so I hope family and friends will forgive us when we rebuff their offers of DIY help. I'm sure there'll be plenty of opportunity in the new house! 

Having said all that, it was lovely to have my sister come and help with the spare room, which now looks much better. 

In fact, we worked so quickly that we also got round to painting some of the kitchen. This room is an odd mix of woodchip and cladding (we ignored the cladding for now, and we're just painting over the woodchip, not replacing it). One wall was 30-year-old grey/blue, with faded patches around where picture frames had been, and another wall was bright yellow, painted several years ago in a bid to brighten the place up. I'd painted over the black paintwork earlier in the week, so things were already looking up. 

We've got with a pretty shade of 'English sage', and I'm quite taken with it. It already looks much better, even though we still need to do the fiddly bits round the window and the boiler, and the whole thing will need a second coat to properly cover the yellow. 

So we're getting there, even if at times I feel like we're going backwards. This week I'll patch up the rest of the kitchen painting, and we're having the bedroom carpet replaced on Friday so we'll need to empty the entire room before then. 

I'm looking forward to some time off over Christmas - a few days of lounging around and visiting family in various parts of the country, and then a week or so to get stuck in to some uninterrupted decorating. We might even be finished soon, you never know...