Hall, stairs and landing(s)

The toughest decorating job in any house is papering and painting the hall, stairs and landings, so in the case of Bon Marché, I'm glad to get it out of the way early. I don't have any choice to be honest because all three staircases run sideways up the back wall and I can't progress until they are in position and the wallpaper must go on first!

As I mentioned in my last post (Measure twice . . . 2 April), the wallpaper design was printed from a CD. Inkjet inks are water soluble so I couldn't use ordinary wallpaper paste and I'm having to trust to spray mounting the A4 paper directly onto the MDF and smoothing it down firmly with a clean soft cloth (synthetic fleece is ideal). With the paper held top and bottom by mouldings and skirting boards not to mention the stairs themselves, I'm hoping things should stick OK. But if any peeling does occur, the old shop/house is not meant to be in perfect repair and it won't really matter!

This shows the wallpaper following the line of the first flight of stairs. The area behind the stairs is Charlie Brennan's kitchenette at the back of the shop, and here I'm also trying out the position of the sink and draining board. Above the sink there'll be a dummy window. I might also install a false door down to the (imaginary) cellar if space allows.


The caboodle theme is sculptural this time. 

Remember that Charlie's shop specialized in antiques and curios before the war, which accounts for anything and everything gathered together here, from a statue of the Hindu god Vishnu, a suit of armour, the figurehead from the good ship Centurion and the gilded Virgin and Child from a baroque crib, to various other bits and pieces (probably destined to stand gathering moss out in Frankie's yard if there's no room indoors).

charliechas