renovate the appartment

...I shall write regarding this with clearly phrased smaller goals. This one is being purged.

Yesterday, we went to IKEA and bought two white EXPEDIT shelves, plus two sets of drawers and two doors for it.
The small expedit has 8 square shelves and the large one has 25. We put up the small one yesterday and kicked off today’s activities with building the big one, which took about an hour’s time. Money and time well spent, because they both really calm down the so far busy atmoshere we felt with the open IVAR. The IVAR unit is 13 years old and if it weren’t still in ship shape, I’d dump it. But I’ll try to give it to charity somehow, if someone will come and pick it up.
With the EXPEDITs up, I can finally move my books from the bedroom to the reading area in our open plan apartment and that’ll give the whole place a much better feel, especially when we put it on the market next year.
You could say that we might be investing too much right now, but the more liveable the place looks the more people will be interested in buying the place and the more profit we’ll make. That profit of the extra thousand or two may even pay for transporting our sh*t to Ireland, which means we don’t have to last-minute sell our brand new shelves less than a year from now.
The other huge job we did was to paint two more small walls (the one with the painting on and the one on the other side of the small storage room) walls in terracotta. We also painted two magnolia coats on a 12m2 wall and a second coat on a 6m2 wall. Paint companies writing on their containers that the paint covers the area in one coat are always taking the micky.
Still to be painted: 2 second coats on two terracotta walls, plus touch ups on the 8m long main wall. We’ll need the big bucket of paint, because the bedroom will be in the same non-colour (start bland, then blend…).
I’ve also decided to sex up the curtains (which we washed and which are surprisingly bright!) by sowing on a dark green second layer. The sun light wakes us up and the ones we have are quite boring beige.
More to be done by DIY: sanding all the wooden parts (doors, frames, banister, handrail, stairs, bedroom ceiling beams etc.) and paint them white. Yes, it will be a busy autumn, but this house has to be in ship shape come spring.

bf has been doing a huge paint job this week! So I can’t really claim any of the glory for myself, only admire his work. And tell him where it needs a second coat.

And here’s after. Oh, it is be-a-utiful!! At first, I thought it would look pink, but now it has dried, it looks sooooo cool. Or rather warm. Unfortunately, the touch up session to get an even coat instead of clouds had to be scheduled for tomorrow. But I already did the kitchen wall today, and I’m in training now.

We’ve painted the wall behind the telly in creamy white and then picked a terracotta paint for the small wall of our mini storage. Here’s before.

Yesterday and today, we painted the kitchen, which looks great now! The colour is a creamy white, which replaces former creamy magnolia/nicotine. We started out with a small tin of paint, but upgraded this morning to a big plastic bucket, because we will use lots more of it in the flat. Of course, the ceiling needs also to be painted, and the bathroom door is in a tone my bf calls “mushroom”. But the doors will be painted another time, and we also would love to change the fittings. The ghastly roller blind needs replacing as well.