My New Studio/Office – Before and After Pictures!

 

From beginning to the finish!

 

 This is the second bedroom as I viewed it, before I put an offer in for the house

 

When I first moved in I paid a builder to do several jobs in the house, including painting this room, the walls and ceiling brilliant white and the window frames and skirting board Crown paint "Tropic Lagoon" – also the built in wardrobe had two shelves added inside, so I can use that as a storage cupboard. That was a complete waste of money after I pulled up the carpet in preparation for the new carpet coming as you will see below! Unfortunately my first builder was now on a big house build and had not got time to deal with this for me, but recommended Alex Nicholson. Alex only lives 2 minutes away, so this was very helpful for both him and me and also he was very good throughout the whole process, plus Alex knows this house as he has worked on it before.

 Mouldy wet floor boards discovered after removing the old carpet and underlay

 

 Mouldy floorboards taken up and this is the wet concrete floor underneath with some type of bitumen roofing felt covering the concrete, so my new builder Alex thought.

 

The floor had to be bleached and then had to be left to dry out for a few weeks with my humidifier

My electrician removed this very old type storage heater

 

 New anti mould floor boards laid over insulating board directly on top of the dried out concrete

All the skirting board had to be removed and replaced

At this point I made the decision to ask Alex to insulate the two outside walls. Whilst the room was in this state, I decided this would be the best time to do it. Insulating the walls would normally mean stripping everything back to the outside walls, but Alex had a very busy schedule (as all tradesmen have in Shetland) and could not fit this job in, but he did say he had time to simply add insulation board and plasterboard to the existing two walls, so thats what he did. It did mean it made the room slightly smaller, but no big issue. 

 Insulation board and plaster board going up

 Taping and filling done by Alex

Window sills had to be removed and rebuilt

New light and sockets put in by electricians

 Alex removed the inspection hatch (not needed) and plastered over

Inspection hatch removed and plastered up – looks much better so far!

I asked Alex to remove the wardrobe door as I decided it would look better without it.

 

Holes where window frames were nailed back and skirting board filled by me, including lots more sanding down everywhere. The wardrobe shelves took far longer than it looks, as had to fill lots of holes and gaps, before I even started doing undercoating, painting and white gloss work.

 

My decorating table, which got messier and messier as time went on!

 

I had to Youtube how do replace this wallpaper and it turned out ok

Alex filled the hole were the socket was

After one coat of watered down coat of paint on the new plaster board and then two coats of paint on all four walls and one on the ceiling, painted window frames, skirting and new shelves (was wardrobe) in gloss brilliant white and walls in brilliant white.

 

New carpet fitted on 26th July – original date was 1st March!

 

Tomkinson  Tweed – "Shetland" (seriously, this is the name) – not a cheap carpet and 80% wool, but not planning to change it again in my lifetime! I also paid to have Cloud 9 11mm underlay, rather than the usual 9mm.

 

After the carpet was fitted I decided to paint the inner window frames in Crown "Velvet Smoke"

 

The entire room is supposed to represent the beach, sand carpet, turquoise sea and white surf or and clouds! I like to be different! Now I have finished painting, I can see that the Velvet Smoke colour would have been better on the skirting rather than the darker Tropic Lagoon, but by the time I fill this room with desks and all my gear, you won't even see the skirting, so it won't really matter too much! 😊😆

 

It took a very long time to sand down the inner window frames, far too long and fiddly, then two coats of undercoat and two top coats.

 

 I then decided I didn't like the pine door (they are all pine in the house), so I decided it would look good in "Velvet Smoke" to balance with inner window frames. More sanding, two undercoats and two top coats

 

The finished room with many hours of prep work and painting!

  

Duette Black out Blinds in "Cashew" arriving on 6th September!

Rointe Belize radiator to put up and desks to put together still