get-ready-for-sale: do the living room

Today, I gave the frame of the hall door its second coat on the inside, a first coat on the outside and did a few touch-ups where the masking tape ripped off some paint when we removed it.

I can’t really say that I’m having a ball painting, but we’ve been scrubbing and painting since Wednesday.
The gloves have come off (and replaced with yellow rubber ones). We’ve tackled the biggest job yet, paining all of the wooden surfaces in the house, starting with the bathroom door, which bf gave its first coat on Wednesday. While is was spending my LAST Queensday in Holland at work (I had off Good Friday, so I had no choice), bf also scrubbed the entire banister. So Thursday, we painted the bathroom door with its second coat of paint, inside and outside. We also took turns painting the banister and the cloakroom door with its their coats, while scrubbing down more surpaces with sugar soap. It’s so much bloody work, but it’s so worth it. The paint which we are slowly but surely covering with a very bright glossy cream white paint is a horrific “mushroom” beige, nearly grey and so ugh.
Today, while bf was at work, I painted over yesterday’s primary layers, I’ve done the entire banister, which took the best part of the B52’s “Cosmic Thing” album, and while listening to the full first “Kooks” CD, a private choir CD and the “Killers” (twice!), I even gave the inner entrance door its first layer. I know it sounds repetitive, that’s because it is. But at least a very important chunk of what we want to DIY is being ticked off the list. I need a day off from all the fumes from the tin. I think we’ll go to the Efteling.

Last night, I gave the bathroom door another scrub. Then, I got started on the hall door. I mean “started” because that one was mankovich!!! I’ll need to do this again and keep changing the soap water. At least we are getting somewhere. I feel that even washing a door to prepare it for painting, even though it’s a dirty and lonely job (bf was watching the footie for the last two evenings), is a step moving forward. The following week, we’ll both have two days off, as it’s Queen’s Day on wednesday and Ascention Day on thursday. Because Queen’s Day is a Dutch holiday, one of my team has to work in the office, and because I already took off Good Friday this year, I’ll have to work on my last QD in Holland! But bf’s got the day off, we both have Ascention Day off, and because my company is such a nice one, they give us Friday off as well. So I’m planning to use the holidays wisely, painting wooden surfaces and painting walls and ceilings. If everything goes as planned, we’ll be ready to contact real estate agents in 10 day’s time.

To prepare the wooden surfaces for the paint job, I have started scrubbing them with sugar soap. Technically, I did the bathroom door, but half of it can be seen from the living room, so it counts for that. Let’s not get hung up on details.

Thank goodness it was the small pane (0.60m X 1.06m), which will cost only EUR 100 replacing.
It broke when bf tried to put it back into place, after cleaning. It was the last of four to be put back into place.
Feck.

Today, we bought the tiniest screwdriver and were able to remove the first two of four window panes. We cleaned them and the inner side of the outside panes, then placed the panes carefully back in place. Huge pieces of glas are scary!

EDIT: Due to heavy drinking on Saturday night we were absolutely in no state to handle big, sharp, lose sheets of glas. So the second half of the job will remain unfinished until uhm… next weekend?

We have quite old windows, I believe the outer panes could be original, their shape certainly suggests that.
The inner panes are held in place by a wooden frame which is screwed in place. We cannot clean between the two panes unless we have the small screwdriver we need to remove the screws which hold the frame pieces in place.
I am a little anxious about removing the inner panes. They are huge and it’s dangerous. Waaaaaaaaaaaah!

G1 declutter
G2 sand wooden surfaces
G3 paint wooden surfaces
G4 paint ceiling
G5 replace doorhandles
G6 clean between the window panes
(G7 buy IKEA mirror sticky tiles for utility room door)

Edit G2: wash wooden sufaces with sugar soap