Emboldened by my success at painting the bathroom and half of the hallway, I thought myself a DIY expert, but alas! I was slightly wrong.

I have good manual skills in general, but the main (or the only) qualification I have is my dad is one of those people who can fix everything, so somehow it must be genetic.

It isn’t really…

The plan is a bicolour hallway: the upper part, painted in the same lighter grey of the bathroom, had already been done. Before proceeding with the lower dark grey part, I wanted to prepare the door frames, the skirting boards and the trim. However, the paint on the wood was already peeling off – even if it had been refurbished just before it got on sale; so it needed to be removed to have the best finish.

First, the best option seemed to sand, but then reading on the Internet, I discovered about paint strippers, and thought it was the perfect option! And probably it is, but not sure it’s right in this situation.

Now I have a not so smooth window sill and a small part of the bathroom door frame. Under the peeling white layer, there is a yellowing one, which seems of better quality, and then stripper removed parts of it to making the surface irregular. I realised it was going to take forever, and then after reading the warnings on the bottle, I started freaking out it was going to set itself and my house on fire, so I gave it away on a free cycle group, and focused on sanding and scraping (obsessively) and waiting for Lidl to put an electric sander on sale.

And it did, on my birthday!

Once everything is nice and smooth, and it’ll take a good while, I’ll use a primer/undercoat first so the wood paint should last.

And what color will it be?

Currently, black trims, frames and skirting board, and two shades of grey for the walls. But I have been changing my mind quite often, i.e. every time I check out Pinterest.

Initially, my plan was to have the skirting boards, frames trims the same dark grey of the bottom part.

The doors are still TBD. Maybe a lighter grey, or a combination of the 3 colours with a geometric pattern. The plan is to first finish the walls, and then see how it looks. Especially, since I already kinda changed my mind about the dark grey bottom part, but since I have the paint already, that’ll stay. I’ll play around the doors and wooden bits.

To be continued…