Skirting the question... and more before and after

This is a section of the wall in the living room. Probably the house did not orginally have skirting boards (see the traditional original green goes to the floor). Skirting would have been expensive. This room did originally have architraves (though not all the rooms did). Sometime in the house's history this room was painted and skirting added (the cream colour stops short of the floor). Then in the 70's the room was stripped of both skirting and architraves, and panelled with the synthetic cladding, which was *truly* awful (and which we removed). The question then was: would we put skirting back, or not? In the end we did in the living room, though we've opted not to in the two 'simple' bedrooms, such as the one in the post below (More on 'simple' vs 'special' rooms later). We did find architraves in the original style which we used as replacement.

After removal of panelling

Walls restored, skirting added & architraves replaced

During and after: bedroom restoration

A bit quiet on the blogging side but much is being achieved on the restoration and farm front! One of the jobs is the slow and painstaking restoration of the interior walls. Some of the rooms had been panelled in the 1970s with a horrid synthetic multiply cladding, which we have been taking down (where it hadn't falled down already). Other rooms had simply fallen into disrepair (having been beautifully painted by Val Battistuzzi in the '70s and '80s in nice pastel shades... and then abysmally treated by the last owners). Despite having used a pressure cleaner on the interior house when we first moved in, the walls still require washing and scrubbing. Then the walls and ceilings are sanded. Then the gaps between the boards are filled with an acrylic elastic sealant. Then the painting (first by brush along the boards, then with a roller), in two coats. All in all many hours of work on each wall.

During ceiling restoration - early stages, new white coat. The walls are gap filled already.

Door and original lock restored

Ready to move in! This is now Yarrow's room.