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Well, the end of our week off, anyway.

We spent the last day of our time off doing more stuff around the place. More deck work - Jayne was treating the beams with some sort of water-repellant treatment stuff, then filling in the semi-rotten bits with something that looked like custard but was actually putty, while I was pulling up more decking boards.

We’ve decided we have to pull off the whole railing as well as the decking. We didn’t think we’d have to, but in places where it’s joined to the beams the wood’s starting to rot. Best to replace it, even though there’s heaps of work in it. We might finish it by October.

I did walk Maxy at the beach this morning too - it was such a beautiful morning that I couldn’t resist it even though there was work to be done. He loves his beach walks. (And so do we).

Here he is this morning, with stick.

Just a quick post (it’s Saturday night, there are other things to do) to show the finished bedroom.

At some point in the near future we’ll make a headboard, buy some sidetables, and hang some art. In the meantime we’re over the moon with the way the room looks and feels. We were going for a sort of glam calmness, and we reckon we’ve achieved it.

P.S. Where’s Wally?

Here’s something that DIY redecorators already know: if you think you can stop at just one room you’re kidding yourselves.

We’ve finished the bedroom, but now the bathroom looks a bit plain. Too bad, it’ll have to stay as is for now.

Here’s Jayne doing most of the work -

We chose a Copper Pearl paint in Trilogy colour. It has a metallic finish and you can use different application techniques to create different effects. We tried vertical lines from floor to ceiling but couldn’t get them straight enough, so we changed our minds and went for random textured effect with a broom. It’s drying right now so later today we’ll go back into the room for the final viewing.

We also bought a simple home theatre system, which is set up and working but I want to put the rear surround speakers in the ceiling (which I’ll be doing as soon as I’ve posted this).

It puts out good sound despite its size, but the inputs in the back are a bit restrictive. I’ve had to plug the iPod dock, the DVD player and the PS2 into the telly, then the telly into the system, which means that to listen to the iPod the telly has to be on and switched to AV3 input.

I think there’s probably a cable I can buy to plug the iPod directly into the system but I can’t be bothered finding out. One day.

Time to get up a ladder.

Another day of redecorating today - we’re getting right into it while we have this time off work thanks to Hotham’s grassiness.

Here’s the laundry, all painted and spiffy (the photo doesn’t do it justice but, as you can see, Jayne’s very proud of it).

We’ll re-tile the splashback and put a decent benchtop in at some stage.

And here’s the study all ready for paintings, comfy chairs, important-looking books, reference manuals, the MacBook and other office-y things that are conducive to work and not conducive to procrastinating.

So, with those done we turned our hands to the balcony. The wood is quality merbau but it’s had its day - it was either neglected in recent years or maybe it’s just old. Some of it is almost rotten. It all has to come up.

We want to replace it with 9cm wide boards, so if there are any good pieces we’ll probably reuse them on decking in the garden rather than re-laying them.

This was fun but hard work. The vicious-looking crowbar that I bought at Bunnings for $10 made short work of lifting the boards but there are heaps of them, we had to remove all the decking screws, and being one floor up didn’t help.

Max had to watch from behind our makeshift barrier.

It took us five hours to lift around 12sqm of decking - with another 24sqm to go. We’ll do it in stages though, so when this lot’s up we’ll treat the joists, cap them, then lay the new boards before starting the next bit.

I’ll be busting to go back to work by Sunday night.

We decided not to go to Hotham this week (discussed previously here), and are using our week off to redecorate instead. The study’s done and next on the list are our bedroom and the laundry. Our plans for the bedroom are quite ambitious but we think it’ll look a treat when we’re done.

Here are some shots of us painting the study and laundry - Scallopini and Winter Dawn in the study and  Sanddrift in the laundry ….

"Finished" photos soon!