Life has been so busy that I actually started this post three weeks ago. The Holiday Apartment completed yesterday, if you follow my instagram feed you’ll see it a little further on than this post.

Three months hard graft, this project has been a challenge. I’m truly addicted to life’s highs and pushing myself to my limit is what I love to do. It’s fair to say that this project has definitely done that!

I have lucked out with a super cool builder. He has taught me so much. We joked as we worked alongside each other that I was restricted to 3 tips a day. One day I managed to squeeze 5 out of him and we laughed this week as he didn’t hit me up for this on his bill.

So what have a learned? The systematic use of paint, taping walls with pre-mixed plaster, caulking skirting boards, filling all sizes of holes in plaster board, the endurance of sanding and painting floor boards and that I do upside down joiner – much to the hilarity of the builder and his side kick, not sure I’ll live that one down – but hey, however you can do it right?!

I’m the biggest fan of Dulux paints. They are my go to brand when it comes to paint. With Dulux, it does what it says on the tin. Good paint at a good price. But what paint do you use? There are so many paints out there it’s hard to not think ‘it’s just paint’ and go ahead and slap it on any surface. Not so.

Different surfaces need different paints. A wood paint is different from a metal paint, which is different to a kitchen unit paint and so on. It’s important to know this and understand that each paint’s chemical make up is different for the intended surface.

So what did I use?

Firstly all wood such as skirting boards, doors, wooden surfaces and any pre-vanished doors (that were being upcycled) were painted with one coat of Dulux All Purpose Primer. This is a ‘one coat fits all’ scenario and although it’s not water based and smells rather ‘painty’ it truly is the business. One coat of this and you are assured to not have paint peeling in 18 months time and it acts as a perfect glue for the top coat to go on the wooded surface.

Secondly, all walls got at least 4 coats of Dulux Vinyl Matt, in pure white. This paint is great to use as it’s so easily spread over walls. It’s thick, glossy and once dry, reflects the light beautifully.

The other paint I can’t live without is Dulux Diamond Eggshell. Once you have undercoated your wood with Primer next up is the Eggshell. Super hard, super enduring this paint dries harder than concrete in the Sahara desert. The perfect paint coverage for doors and skirting and it would take some beating up to make it chip.

Finally the floor. Painting the floor was something of an experiment for when I get round to painting the floor in the main part of the house in due course. The results are stunning. The floor is glossy and feels amazing on bare foot. It vacuums and mops well and it will be interesting to see how durable it is in time.

Now I have painted wooded floors before. It hasn’t been a disaster but the results were not what I thought they’d be. However I had super good advice from Vanessa Owen (serial renovator extraordinaire of the Diftwood Bachs in Kerikeri, New Zealand) who told me that floor paint must be polyurethane based.

The floor took far longer than I had thought (it’s always the way, the jobs you think will be quick, end up being much longer) and there was a systematic process for doing it. I did a lot of research before letting myself loose on the floor. What came up time and time again was that painting a floor needs lots of thin coats and that the floor needs prepped before painting. So the process was; vacuum then sand with coarse sandpaper, vacuum again to get all the dust from sanding, then paint. The floor in the holiday home took 4 rounds of this.

I used Blackfriar Polyurethane Paint. This gloopy, insanely thick paint has worked wonders on the chip board flooring. Pairing this with some dramatic geometric patterned rugs has had a seriously big impact on the over spaces.