Orange beams no more

When we moved in last year, every bit of the woodwork in the dining room was badly stained a kind of “1980s orange brown” colour.  In general this was pretty awful, but worst of all were the two long “beams” running across the ceiling.  These are not structural (as they would be in a medieval hall), but nor were they bought from B&Q in 1995 – rather they are a decorative feature of the original Victorian times.  At this period they would have either been plain painted, grained to look like dark wood, or even painted with a decorative effect to look like marble.  They wouldn’t have been orange though.

So yesterday R and I took turns standing at the top of the eight step ladder to paint them (plain cream as I lack the skills for marbling wood standing on a ladder 15 feet up).  R is lucky in that at 6 foot he could get away with the second step off the top, whilst at 5’6″ it was brown trousers time for me… J held the ladder – I am not getting at him for this btw – he genuinely feels wobbly at height which he has all his life.

For illustrative purposes, here are the beams with one painted (it will get another coat if I can bring myself to do it).  The room instantly looks brighter and more welcoming.

So the last beam gets painted today, and then I can reconstruct my dining room.  One lesson to me is that rooms this size and with this ceiling height are big jobs and not to be undertaken lightly.