The hallway, landing and stairs took a very long time to complete. Over about 3 years I did a bit at a time. Mostly because of the cat, and having to move her and her litter tray, when I needed to keep her away from the wet paint or the mess.
Stripping the wall paper took nearly 2 weeks, it had been on the walls for decades, been painted over and was textured, so it was really hard to get off, even with a steamer. The green paint on the wood work took a week to do, it needed 4 coats, and so I had to go around and around again every day, to get the job done.
The stairs I decided to paint in alternate black and red, because I still needed to go up and down the stairs everyday, so I did it in layers, and used the stairs by going up and down them by only stepping on the ones that hadn’t been painted or had already dried. Each step needed 3 coats, and so each layer took 2 days to dry properly, so the stairs took a couple of weeks to complete.
The white also took weeks, I think I ended up doing about 7 layers in total. The white paint I had was from the Forest paint recycling place, and in the end I think I could have done with some thicker and better quality white, as the paint was very thin and therefore needed more and more layers.
You cant choose what paints you get from the recycling place. So the red was what I chose as that’s what I had left after mixing up the pink for the other wood work in the house. The black I had left over from a previous house and the green I bought new from b n q, and was called Indian Summer.
It took 4 layers with the green because it was water based wood paint and not oil based like the stairs. Most new paints are now water based, and so they are thin, and so you need more layers. This Indian Summer green is where my love of Lime Green came from and I have now used it nearly everywhere in my new home in Bristol 😉
