Home improvements

[mrph]

The tricky bit about decorating this house - as opposed to the awkward, expensive and time-consuming bits - is working out what I want the finished room to look like.

Now that the bathroom's out of the way and the kitchen's taking shape (if only on paper), I need to think about the three upstairs bedrooms. Which means deciding what goes where, updating the lighting and looking at colour schemes...

...not so good at that bit. The small spare bedroom is first in the queue. I know some of what I'm doing -

• Moving the light switch, adding a new plug socket.
• Reversing the door so that it opens the other way.
• Replacing the light with something a little more stylish.
• Getting rid of the pelmet and putting a curtain pole (and new curtains) in.
• New carpet.

...what I don't yet know is:

• Colour scheme
• Paint or wallpaper
• Whether or not it's worth moving the light
• Whether I should add an additional wall or bedside light
• ...or add a bedside light switch

Hmm. Decisions.

Comments

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

as long as your walls are nice and smooth, wallpaper is just more hassle than it's worth and a bitch to put up.

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

Actualy i'd say that painting walls if they are not smooth is often the best plan too....A lumpy, bumpy wallpaper looks crap and tends to heighlight imperfections....a painted old wobbly wall, just says old period property.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Hmm, true.

[mrph.livejournal.com]

True, but if I can get it non-wobbly, even better...

[kittentikka.livejournal.com]

If you're digging into the wall anyhow for light-switch-moving, you've going to need plaster. So you might as well mess around with the ceiling.

Bedside light switches and colour schemes are important to you if you're planning to stay, and to other people if you're planning to sell. Will you get your worth out of a spare wall-switch?

And I loathe wallpaper, personally. But you might be right up there with it. But as the other comments say, it depends on the walls, the situation, and the amount of practice the person doing it has had.

[mrph.livejournal.com]

Ceiling work's a definite, I think.

On the spare room, I think I just need a light switch by the door and a bedside switch (or lamp). Keep it simple.

My room's going to be a bit more complex, I suspect, as I want more flexible lighting.

As for wallpaper... I'm not entirely convinced it's a good idea. But it's not something I'd really thought about, until now.

[kittentikka.livejournal.com]

What I do when I want to even out a slightly bumpy wall is use backing paper and then paint that. For evening out a very bumpy wall, you're on your own.

I'd go for the bedside lamp, rather than the switch, because different people want beds in different places, and it's annoying to have a switch on the other side of the room. Unless there's only one obvious place for a bed, I'd just have extra power sockets.

[mrph.livejournal.com]

In this case, I think there's only one obvious place for a bed - the room's small and slightly longer than the bed, but you wouldn't want the bed in front of the door, so it would need to be on the left side.

The other alternative would be under the window - but that's where the radiator is, so...

[malal.livejournal.com]

Some Odd People like their beds against the radiator. Not sure why, but they do exist.