As I said in my previous bedroom post, work at St Abbs never seems to go without a hitch. Our decorator finally came back to us to say that he couldn't, after all, now do the work. He was very apologetic and to give him his due, he was able to arrange for his brother to step in. So although we lost a few weeks, at least Bruce was kind enough to take the work on for which we are very grateful 😊
While we were waiting to find out what the score was, Adrian occupied himself with breaking up all that lovely dry lath into suitable size pieces to use as kindling. We've got enough to keep us going for a good couple of years or more ~ hopefully until we've added enough to the 'ole coffers to get the next room tackled 😉
By this point, as you can see, Bruce had done all the taping and filling of the joints, and his son Mark got the ceiling and walls primed ready for Shug to get on with the rest of the woodwork.
As well as trying to figure out the best layout for the furniture, we also had to decide where to have a cupboard built. In the end, beside the door seemed the most sensible option as it's something of a "wasted" space really.
We had thought about buying a wardrobe (although it wouldn't match the furniture we already have, which is still in excellent condition so we didn't want to replace it) but nothing off-the-peg would really make the best use of the space available. We decided to ask Shug to build one instead ~ we are so pleased with what he's done. We'll be able to use the side and top shelves for storage (something that is in very short supply in St Abbs) and our guests will have space to hang their clothes in the rest of the cupboard. Beverly is already planning what she will be leaving here for when she stays over 😄
As in the upstairs bathroom, we decided to have the window recess lined with tongue and groove panels, something that we intend to do in all the rooms as we work our way around the house.
Personally, I think it looks so much nicer than having wallpaper (or even painted walls) in the recess, especially with it being separated by the moulding that goes round the outer edge.
This window recess isn't quite the same as that in the bathroom because it gives on to a flat wall. Shug replicated the panel on the left-hand side, with a cut-out section around the odd little triangular window that is a feature of all the upstairs recesses.
He then got all the woodwork in place and the room really started to come together.
All the woodwork, including the built-in cupboard on the other side of the room and the tongue and groove round the window, will be painted white. Being partly in the roof-space and having coomb ceilings, the rooms upstairs don't get a lot of daylight; hopefully having the window recess painted white will help to bounce a little more light into the bedroom.
Although the room didn't have a picture-rail, we decided to have it installed. Again, it's a look we really like and as an added bonus we can, of course, hang our pictures from it rather than making too many holes in our lovely new walls!
We've gone for a sort of hybrid of how both the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms have been painted. The bedroom ceiling, including the coombs, will be painted white right down to the picture rail, with the same shade of blue (Barrow, from Lakeland Paints) as that in the downstairs bathroom and utility. Blue is my favourite colour and this is such a pretty, soft shade; it will be interesting to see if it looks differently in the bedroom than it does in the bathroom.
Although you can't see it in this photograph, the side of the cupboard has been clad with tongue and groove, as have the doors. The little triangle in the top section is fixed in place; the door to its left will be hinged so that it opens upwards. The hanging section will have two doors; the shelved area will have one door, with a separate lift-out piece for the top triangular section (which will be held in place with magnets).
Mark is now back again getting all the painting done so I'll have more photos to share in due course 😊
