Room Refurb Episode 5: Getting My Stripes On!

Last week was the week that the stripes went on!!!

Gem (Interior Design Extraordinaire) was here to put her expertise to the matter of turning my wall into Beetlejuice's Trousers!

Dude's a style icon what can I say?

First off was the task of painstakingly masking taping the lines for the stripes. Thank god that Gem and Dad were on that one, my severe lack of hand/eye co-ordination would have resulted in a wonky, zebra-like effect (great on safari or the 80s not so great in my room!). Also as proved the next day in my attempt to paint the skirting boards I cannot masking tape to save my life!

Gem's far more of a natural than me!

Whilst Gem taped up the wall I hit the cabinet with a scraper and white spirit to try and get the  stickers off. After about 5 attempts and my room left smelling like nail polish remover for a full 48 hours the damn things are off apart from a few small paper bits that can be painted over at some point. I must however commend the Thomas & Friends comic of the early 90s for the excellent longevity of their stickers! Thomas, James, Gordon & Co hung on until the bitter end!

And then for the paint!

The first brush!

The look of concentration/terror at getting it wrong!

Two down, only 9 to go.....

The result of a day's hard work!

So now the room has stripes and newly painted cherry red skirting boards!

How good does it look?

Today Dad and I went to get the carpet ready to be laid tomorrow or Friday and then I'll be ready to move my shiny new furniture in ❤💀

Obviously anyone who would like to lend a hand with furniture assembly do feel free to RSVP to the normal address ....... *tumbleweed** 

Love Jen

XxxX

A trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon

As promised here (at last) is my blog about Helen's & my trip to Stratford!

Helen's birthday and my pay rise were all the excuse we needed to finally make the trip 'ooop north' and I'm so glad we did. Helen has been quite a few times before so knew all the best places to go, whereas my only experience was of being sat through Macbeth at the theatre by the river during my college years.

We were absolutely blessed by the weather, it was hot and sunny for the three days that we were there, making the Autumn colours extra vivid. We stayed at the Premier Inn in the centre of town and everywhere was in walking distance (although to be fair the town is so tiny that it's basically a high street and a couple of side streets!).

After dumping our bags we went for a walk along the river and through the town.

Churchyard

I'm seriously considering buying a river boat!

Look at these lovely colours

The town has lots of quirky little shops, my favorite by far was the Magic Alley which just had the best atmosphere, selling lots of Halloween-themed gifts, spell books, crystals and more unicorn products than you can shake a stick at!

I also got my Harry Potter fix!

Unfortunately there was also a year round Christmas shop ,,,,,,,,

I love how the shops are in 100s of years old buildings

The beautiful sunset on the way out to dinner

Enjoying our Chinese

The next day we explored the 'Shakespeare attractions'. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust run a few different properties in and around Stratford - Shakespeare's Birthplace, Mary Arden's Farm, Anne Hathaway's Cottage and Shakespeare's New Place. You can buy tickets for the houses separately or, as in our case, you can buy a Full Story ticket which covers all the properties and is valid for a whole year. 

Off out for the day

Our first stop and our favourite location was Mary Arden's Farm. The property is a fully working Tudor farm with traditional crafts, falconry and most importantly cute animals!

Helen inside the house

Finally a door I'm too tall for!

The Autumn colours were absolutely stunning. 

Helen enjoying the view

Piggies!

Ellie the Shirehorse

A V Adventurous goat!

Helen and her new loves Bill and (big) Ben

Meeting your BFF's new love is very important

One of the highlights of the farm was the barn owl demonstration. Arwen was absolutely beautiful and the man giving the demonstration was absolutely fascinating.

Utterly gorgeous

Our next stop was Anne Hathaway's Cottage

We didn't venture inside as there was a large guided tour going around but instead enjoyed the gardens. 

How cool are these music note railings?

Wonder if I can convince Dad to put some in the garden?

Helen enjoying the view

And of course there was a scone stop!

Heaven

That evening we sought out the local Wetherspoons for dinner and I took the opportunity to sample some Unicorn Gin

This is apparently my gin-tasting face!

After dinner we indulged in one of my favourite activities, night time walking. We went down to the river path and watched the swans. 

Such a beautiful evening

I'm so glad I finally spent more than 4 hours in Stratford and even avoided Macbeth! It's a beautiful, quiet town. The perfect place to spend a couple of days away relaxing and to fall in love with donkeys!

Can't wait to go back in April!

Love Jen

XxxX

Room Refurb Episode 4 - Splashed

In this week’s blog I’m pleased to say that more progress has been made!

Yesterday Dad very kindly painted my soon-to-be-feature wall with the white base coat that we need before the black stripes go on (check out the picture at the bottom). This week has also seen the return of my signed 30STM poster to it’s rightful place on the wall along with a couple of photos temporarily stuck on the white board to make me feel more at home. I’ve also invested in some photo frames that I’ve been arranging photos in ready for putting on the wall, although with the amount of photos that used to be stuck on the wall I may need a few more frames …..

Dad is hoping to plasterboard the wall that my standing shelves will lean against today and then next week I have Miss Project Planner herself Gem coming in on Thursday and Friday to help with proceedings.

I think the last few ‘big’ things that need doing before the fun stuff starts to happen are the stripping of the final bit of wallpaper behind the radiator, the aforementioned plaster board, painting the skirting boards, putting the black stripes on the wall and finally replacing my poor trashed carpet!

I’ll update you next week!

Love Jen

XxxX

 

Room Refurb Episode 3: Stipped

Morning all, time for the latest room update.

Whilst Helen and I were away in Stratford-Upon-Avon last week (blog about that coming soon!) Dad very kindly moved the last bits out of my room, stripped off all the wallpaper and painted 3 of the walls a dark grey. As you can imagine it’s been a hell of a shock to the system, bare walls and just the TV for company! My bed has moved too so that it now faces the TV rather than being against the wall in the corner of the room (giving me even more of an excuse for binges of Stranger Things and Queer Eye, cheers Netflix!).

I’m aware that I’m about to sound like a really ungrateful cow, and I really don’t mean to be, but it’s horribly unsettling. I’m struggling to sleep at the moment as it just doesn’t feel like my room, my sanctuary from the outside world. It’s seriously getting me down and stressing me, I miss my wall of photos and my signed 30STM poster (and yes I know this sounds like the whining of a 16 year old). There’s still so much to do; a wall to paint black and white, a cabinet to white spirit to take off old stickers on it and then paint, a door and skirting boards to re-paint, furniture to assemble, blinds to find and put up, a new carpet to lay and so much more. I’m trying to take the advice of Gem and Helen and think of the bigger picture and search for little things to decorate the room with (they’ve even kindly made a Pinterest board full of goth decoration ideas). It’s just so hard to do when the space you’re in is making my mental health suffer.

Again I know how ungrateful and selfish I sound when so many people are going out of their way to help me, I really do but at the moment I’m regretting ever starting the project.

Love Jen

XxxX