PAINT JOB REVISITED

Never paint after a head-banging night out.

A cracking night out!

With the reverb still ringing in my ears from a night out of eclectic music at The Anvil, it’s not hard to understand why you wouldn’t see Ozzy Osbourne cracking out a few coats of satin sheen after the Download Festival.  Keying in corners when your ears (and brain) are still fizzing is like trying to paint straight lines down the M1 during rush hour.  What’s more, due to modern paint formulas, you can’t even get high on the fumes like you used to.

What a legend

Three coats later, the bathroom’s looking like a tribute to Kelly’s Clotted Cream ice cream (‘ty’ve missed unn tamm’ that’s Cornish for ‘you’ve missed a bit’).  So it’s more Cornetto than Deco at the mo but hey, I’m hoping that will change once the tiles are up. 

Slowly starting to come together

Magnolia is really not my kind of colour.  It’s so bland even Kelly Hoppen would have fallen asleep watching it dry.  I read in last Friday’s edition of Bricks and Mortar by The Times that brighter shades are staging a comeback with orange being top of the Must Have list.  Ironic really now that I’ve painted over the previously orange hallways in a non-descript neutral beige. 

You can’t have a better tomorrow if you’re always thinking about yesterday so it’s time to forget Victorian green and concentrate on the positive impact of cream metro tiles.

Before

After

Before tiling - mirror wall

Before tiling - bath wall

MIRROR IMAGE

A statement mirror is another key feature of many Deco bathrooms.  Genuine mirrors from the 1930’s are quite plain, not really big enough to make any great statement and usually hung from a large chain.  They’re quite uninspiring so most of the interior designs we see today feature more contemporary, modern mirrors many of which are geometrically shaped either in a fan or a sunburst design. 

Mirrors from the 1930's

Dunelm currently have a good range of Deco styled mirrors.  Having skimped on the lighting, I splashed out on this lovely fan shaped mirror for £70.

Modern take on a vintage theme

If you’re on a tight budget, there’s a beautiful triple step Deco mirror for £28 available at The Range.  (I bought this one too!)

Bevelled stepped design - good for the price

It’s a precision job fitting a mirror so that it’s not skew-whiff so leaving it to the other half as I’m too cack handed and never quite sure what bubble to look at on the spirit level. 

Before - Victorian look pine mirror

After - Art Deco bevelled fan shaped mirror

Most of these mirrors have a couple of D rings on the back and can be hung on a couple of large sturdy screws if you don’t want to buy a proper mirror fixing kit.  Just make sure the screws are long, heavy duty and securely anchored into the wall with rawl plugs before you attempt to hang it as you wouldn’t want your beautiful mirror taking a swan dive onto the floor, would you?

DECO BATHROOM LIGHTS

Peace and harmony has now been restored after the earlier ‘Mog Wars’ between Ginge and Boots.  It’s really all my fault.  I should never have opened the back door to let Boots in for a crafty snack whilst Ginge was upstairs taking a nap. 

If looks could kill

Kitty doughnut one minute then it’s an all-out moggy stand-off the next.  

So cute when they're asleep

Adorable little Ginge taking a nap

Boots was wailing like a banshee so loudly I hope the neighbours didn’t think I was wringing his neck or something.  What silly pusses!

Preparation work has begun on the bathroom.  As everyone knows, this is the most boring part of any DIY project yet of prime importance.  Sloppy prep leads to poor results so it’s vital to invest time in getting the groundwork done before throwing yourself into any painting or decorating.

To prevent drilling holes in freshly painted walls, we’re fitting all our decorative wall items first.  It might seem a bit strange starting off with all the fixtures and fittings but I think it will help set our Deco compass in order. By putting these up first we can begin to get a feel for the look we’re aiming for. 

Most Deco bathroom layouts I’ve seen on the internet have some symmetrical wall lighting usually featured on either side of a fancy mirror.  Unfortunately due to the layout of our small bathroom, this is not an available option but I feel you can achieve a similar effect using either a window or other focal point such as a large painting.

Fabulous use of symmetry

There’s no shortage of vintage or Deco style lighting on Ebay but these usually come at a premium as anything labelled ‘vintage’ often has an inflated price tag.  For those of us decorating on a budget, there are many beautiful chrome and glass wall lights available either on the internet or on the High Street that can do the job just as well. 

I picked up a pair of decorative lights from Homebase (£15 each) to set either side of the bathroom window.  In an ideal world, these would be wired in but we’re just going to use them as background décor.  Either side of the window they look quite smart.

Cheap but stylish

Frosted white cylinders screw both sides of the chrome fittings

Perfect for the symmetrical Deco look

DEMOLITION DERBY

And talking of yellow, I’ve developed an unhealthy fixation for corn on the cob ever since dining at Charminster’s new Canadian restaurant ‘Moose Kitchen’.  What a gem of a place!  Hidden behind a bus shelter, this eating emporium serves up tasty traditional grub with a Canadian twist and everything’s accompanied by the most delicious corn on the cob.  It’s not often I get a taste for just one thing but now I want corn cobs morning, noon and night. 

To take my mind off mouth-watering buttery corn cobs, I’m spending my bank holiday demolishing the bathroom.  I could be down the beach as it’s the first time in decades the words ‘bank holiday’ and ‘sunshine’ have actually appeared in the same sentence but instead of battling grockles for parking and a patch of sand, I’m beating the crap out of  wood cladding.

Before demolition starts

Mosaic tiles prised off

Wood cladding gone

Demolishing the old bathroom décor is a lot easier than I thought it would be and strangely satisfying.  It’s funny how things are always quicker to take down than put up.  Carefully using a wide scraper and mallet to prise off the mosaic tiles, most of it has come off without damaging the plaster wall surface. 

Taking care not to gouge the plaster wall

Doesn't everyone decorate in their slippers?

As a £200 day rate appears to be the norm for every trades-person these days then I’ve taken the lazy option and booked a tiler to put up the metro tiles.  He’ll be far quicker than I will be and it’ll be less stressful all round. 

So now we’re on the clock to get everything else done before 9 June.  There’s nothing like a deadline to maintain focus on the task in hand.

I could be watching the GT3 racing but instead I'm doing this

After the demolition squad have been

It won't look like this for long

At least Shelby’s making the most of the bank holiday weekend by soaking up those rays before the summer rains arrive.

Topping up the tortoise tan

SMELLOW YELLOW

It’s ‘wear it yellow’ to work day today.  A day where staff are encouraged to prance about the office pretending to have ‘fun’ and wearing yellow T-shirts designed only for the sole purpose of making your outlook on life even more jaundiced than usual.  Smellow yellow- it’s a colour that doesn’t do anyone any favours unless you happen to be a banana or plastic duck.

Management spent the day with enforced grins not unlike baboons with pokers up their arses, hopelessly trying to drum up staff motivation whilst a few underpaid minions grizzled on about how their meagre salaries wouldn’t stretch to a tombola or cake sale.  Raffle?  For a minute there I thought someone was going to get lynched from the suspended ceiling tiles…

But hey, it’s Wednesday.  And in my part-time world, the best day of the week since I only get to suffer the corporate curse for half a day before catching the Biddy Bus home for some well-earned ‘me time’.

Strangely, yellow or rather cream is going to feature a great deal in my next DIY project which will focus on putting the ‘deco’ into decorating as we embark on revamping our dated Victorian style bathroom with something evoking the glamour and stylish simplicity of the Art Deco era. 

Existing dated Victorian style bathroom

Victorian/gothic look 

First to disappear will be the varnished pine tongue in groove cladding and mosaic border.  Hours it took to position each mosaic tile in place but they have no place in a Deco bathroom.

Imagine metro tiles in place of wood cladding

Instead cream mini metro tiles with coloured grouting will replace the pine cladding to roughly the same height.  I’m hoping to top the tiles with a polished chrome square edge box tile trim but I’ve yet to source some economically as even on Ebay these trims aren’t cheap. 

Cream mini metro tiles with dark grouting

A few Deco style accessories to replace the existing rustic pine ones should add a bit of glitz and glamour.  I’ve already bought a beautiful fan shaped mirror (£70 from Dunelm) to replace my vintage pine one and a couple of decorative wall lights which I’ll position symmetrically on either side of the window.

The dark green walls will be painted over in a cream/magnolia colour to tone in with the tiles, more in keeping with the lighter, neutral colours usually used to achieve an Art Deco style look.

My dream bathroom would look like this one

By now you’ll have gathered that I’m a woman with expensive tastes but with a part-time salary so the biggest challenge here is how to ensure my bathroom looks a million dollars but at a fraction of the price.