Preparing and Priming the stairs

Progress has been a bit slow on the hallway as of late, so I really needed to do something to give myself a boost.  Little effort for maximum benefit.

The stairs really needed painting as the old yellow and mustard coloured paint look was really starting to get tired!  But first a little prep...

There were some big old gaps between the steps and the steps had taken a battering with the amount of staples and nails that had been put in them over the years.

So, I started by filling them in.  Some of them were really quite large so I started with Gripfill, hoping that might do the trick.  Some also needed some stripwood to fill the gap as it was that large.

Unfortunately, even in areas with a small amount of filler, it shrunk quite a lot on drying and it all cracked up.

Round 2 of filling.

I went back to my trusty deep gap filler from Toolstation.

There was one particular hole which wouldn't retain any filler.  So I got a little crafty.  I cut out a small section of foil from a foil tray (narrow enough to just be able to fit through the hole) and pierced a small hole in the middle.  I then got a pierce of string and knotted it underneath.

[It just happens there was a big hole in one of the stairs, and one hole in the floorboards on the landing - the following photos are of the landing, but I used the same technique for the stairs]

I then put some gripfill on the upper side of the foil (the side with the longest length of string), and carefully poked it through the hole.

Once I had poked it through, I used the string to gently pull the foil up  and make contact with the underside of the floorboard.  I used a piece of tape to secure the string just whilst it dried, and then added a little more gripfill to try and fill the gap a little bit to start with.

Once dried, the string can be cut.  The hole on the landing I topped up with wood filler as this would be stained to match the floor, but the hole on the stairs, I filled with deep gap filler as this would be painted.

I intended to use Johnstones Acrylic Eggshell Paint in Brilliant White as it claims to stay white and not yellow over time.  I will see how it lives up to those claims in time.  But to use this product it advises you use Johnstones Joncryl Acrylic Primer.  A bit of a sand of all my filler first and I was good to go.

What a difference a bit of paint makes!  I also LOVE the contrast between the white and the wall colour. Yum!

I also discovered the joys of masking tape, specifically yellow Frogtape (for sensitive surfaces).  It has paint block technology to give a really clean edge.  I'd never really had much success with masking tape and it always bled paint underneath.  Confession - I always figured it was for people without any skills to paint a straight line.  That is until now! I LOVE it!

It saves so much time.  Rather than faffing about - just tape on, paint (not even taking any particular care), tape off. Done. I'm sold.

That's only the primer on the steps, I still need to prep  and paint all the spindles and banister on the stairs (a job I'm putting off as I know it will take ages!), as well as properly paint the steps with the top coat, but progress is progress nonetheless, and I'm chuffed.

Updating the loft hatch

I wasn't particularly happy with how the plasterer had left the loft hatch, and it certainly requires some work to get it to a finished standard.

This is what I was starting with:

I planned to completely change the door, and I have in fact had a new door cut out of plywood for probably about 6 months.  I've just never gotten any further...

But I also needed to sort out the plaster around it.  I knew I'd put some trim around the edge of the door, but I didn't want the trim to be too wide so I needed to sort out the plaster work a bit.

I went back to my trusty filler friend.  I actually used deep gap filler as that's all I had lying around, so I thought I would give it a go.  

I started with a filling knife:

But it really wasn;t working out for me.  The filler seemed too dry so I had a look at the instructions, and it recommended adding a few drops of water to it.  I did this, and also cracked out an old card. And it went on waaaay easier than with the filling knife.  

I had no intentions of getting it perfect first time.  But I have had a good go at it.  I'll follow up with some more filler and then sand it flush with the new plaster level hopefully.  Then when I mount the new door, I'll mount it a few mm lower than existing so it's also flush.

It's certainly not finished, but it's progress nonetheless. #smallprogresseveryday

Filling in the holes in the new plaster

So you might have read about our mini plumbing disaster here and here.

Which left us with some gaping holes through to the living room.  I used some deep gap filler, and a filling knife, and filled them as best as I could.

I left this for a few days to go fully hard, and then used some sandpaper to sand it down.  I've no idea what grit size I used, I just picked up the first piece I found in the garage!  It seemed quite coarse, but when I touched the wall afterwards it was super smooth so I didn't bother looking to find any finer sandpaper.

I then touched up with the wall paint, and I used a dry roller to run over where I had touched up to get rid of the brush marks,  I also used this opportunity to touch up a few marks that we have accidently made on the walls since we painted it, not that long ago at all - oops!

For example this one, where Dan made a mark and then tried to rub it to get rid of the mark...

Good as new now.  You'd never know there was ever a hole there now: