the painting year

We have a bit of a plan to do a lot of painting here this year. Husband did a huge chunk of outside painting earlier in the month, freshening up all the dark green around the back verandah, barge boards and so on.

First cab off the rank inside is this room: it is one of the many rabbit-warren rooms added on to the original 1964 house. You step down to it from the laundry and off it are both the teen bedrooms. I spent time this morning emptying the two huge bookshelves which normally live here, and moved various chairs and things, all into daughter's room - she's away until Tuesday so we can use her room for storage while we paint.

I painted this room dark blue five or six years ago. I loved it for a long time but I'm now tired of it.
The new colour will be "our" white: we have been using it since the mid 90s: it used to be called White birch, now it's called White opal. It is creamier than Antique white USA which is what *everyone* uses now as the default white, I think.  In the 1990s  White birch was the fashionable white in the decorating mags and we've never changed from it....

This is another view of the room, standing at that back door above, looking south:

The white slatted blinds were disgusting, I cleaned them and took the flyscreens off before we went to see some friends in Port Melbourne this afternoon. We are about to start painting and I'll clean off those doors of all their bits and pieces. Also clean the windows.

The number of Saturday nights we've spent painting over the last 25 years: MANY. 3 fixer-upper houses means lots of painting.

In other news, probably like everyone else in the country, I made a pavlova and we've just eaten some, as it's Australia Day.

The exciting thing about this one is that I made my usual recipe but this time cooked it in a spring form tin,lined with baking paper and it was a big success and rose really high (  my pavs are normally pretty flat).