The work on our bedroom started on move in day. After carrying Haz over the threshold, I legged it upstairs to rip up the carpet and begun prodding around. From a distance it looked in decent condition, but close-up it was really tired and unloved. Pretty much everything needed stripping bare before we could make it our own.
Anyway, you’re probably not here for all these words so without further ado, here’s what we did with it.
Before
After
The middle bit
We’re bloody well-chuffed with how it turned out after what felt like a bit of a slog. We spent all free evenings and weekends on it for 4 months which I guess isn’t that bad but the first 3 months were the shitty prep jobs – the last month was great! Here’s the main bits of work that we did.
Stripping, sanding, stripping, sanding, sanding, stripping… And more sanding.
Under the grimey carpet we found original pine floorboards and a hearth where the fireplace used to be. To get the floorboards back into shape we had to use industrial sanders which wasn’t overly fun but as with pretty much all this stuff, it was worth it in the end.
On top of floor sanding, we stripped the paint off the skirting, windowsill and door architrave then sanded and painted these. The radiator needed stripping and repainting too.
Finishing floorboards
Before we could varnish the floor, there were some humongous gaps between floorboards that had to be filled. To do this we glued some pine slivers in place and then chiselled & sanded them down to be flush with the floorboards.
After this it was just a case of lobbing 3 coats of varnish on and voila, floor finished.
Door dipping
One job that we couldn’t DIY was stripping the paint off the doors. It was so thick and stuck on that even with Wilkos paint/varnish stripper and a go on the heat gun we couldn’t get it off.
We got all our interior and cupboard doors picked up and dipped by a local firm. This was actually really good value and we’re so pleased with our stripped, zebra-esque doors.
Fitted wardrobe
Planning and building the wardrobe was definitely my favourite job. Don’t get me wrong, it was insanely frustrating at times but felt awesome to have made it myself and saved probably over a grand in the process.
Fireplace
We weren’t bothered about having a working fireplace in the bedroom, but the old hearth was asking for a mock cast iron fireplace to be put back in. We found one on Facebook marketplace which fit the bill. After re-tiling the hearth, we knocked back the bricked up fireplace and put her in place
Painting
The last stage before filling the room with our stuff was to give the walls, ceiling and wardrobe a lick of paint.
Finishing touches
Finally came the fun part – filling the room with stuff, including ‘smart’ hanging bedside lights and a picture ledge which you can read about and make yourself if you fancy.
Next up on the list is spare room #1 – more to follow.
project-number-nine.com 
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