We bought all the material and removed the wallpaper in the rooms. It took us more time than anticipated but we were ready to start.
My father in law came to help us out since we didn’t know anything about painting. Ok, the painting part is sort of evident, but preparing the wall needs some experience. We put one coat of the base paint then plaster. This was the complicated part. It turns out that our walls weren’t smooth at all. So he had to work a lot to create an even surface. At some parts, he even put up two layers of plaster to get a better result. A lot of time was needed to sand the walls as well. It created so much dust in the flat that it got into every room.
I tried to go out with Pixie when we could but she definitely needs her afternoon naptime so we only went out during the mornings and got back for lunch and I tried to put her to sleep. This was a huge challenge. We couldn’t go into the bedrooms to get some sleep so I had to try to make the sofa comfortable for her. I wasn’t that successful. Once it took me around 45 minutes to get her to sleep, the other day I gave up after an hour. She usually sleeps in a dark room and she has plenty of space on the bed to get comfortable. She didn’t have any of these in the living room. After a few days of unsuccessful nap times, we decided it’s just easier if we go out somewhere during the afternoon so she could sleep in the car. This worked! She even stayed asleep after getting out from the car.
After a few days, Pixie wasn’t really interested in the painting that took place in her room. She just wanted someone to play with but she didn’t bother the person who was working. Luckily my husband stayed home most of the days so he could work with his dad or he could entertain Pixie when I had something to do.
Pixie loved to copy what we were doing. She got her own paintbrush, and she was ‘painting’ (without any paint on the brush) with us.
After a while it wasn’t enough for her, I tried to find our arts and crafts box, but couldn’t so traditional painting was out. But I have her water in little pots and she was painting on a paper with water. She loved it! It’s amazing what kids enjoy to do. You just have to be creative and distract them with any kind of activity. If you are enthusiastic enough they will enjoy it as well.
My father in law managed to paint the bedrooms white and put up the plaster at the corridor.
We could start the ‘decoration’ part.
With the use of masking tapes, our bedroom wall got some polygons and the kid’s bedroom got its mountains. One mountain is black chalk paint so they will be able to draw on it. I’m very curious to see how it will work. Will I be able to teach the kids to draw only on that part of the wall or was it a huge mistake to put on chalk paint at this stage?
Pixie had a few mountain animal removable stickers on her wall at our old apartment. We put them up again and it looks really good with the mountains. Pixie was very happy when we were putting them up and she likes her new room.
We worked quite a lot the past few weeks, but almost everything is done now and I’m proud of what we’d done. It’s definitely not easy when you have to entertain a toddler while doing some renovations but the end results worth it!
Now the apartment is ready, baby °2 can arrive any day now!