BR2/Office Redo Part 1

We’ve been beset with niggling details of other room projects but we need to be done upstairs before the first week of March when we will focus on fireplaces. The 2nd Bedroom (which serves as our home office since no one visits even without the excuse of a global pandemic) was the first ceiling plaster job I did to cover the Artex abomination. It was my “learning to plaster” room and as such I have always intended to go back and put the whole thing right.

For instance, look at the corrugation in the plaster around the wiring rose. That’s all my lousy trowelling and failure to smooth things before the mud set permanently. The entire ceiling was like that.

First, though, I moved the light fixture to the perceived centre of the room. If you draw diagonals from the corners, the actual centre is almost directly above the desk chair due to the chimney breast jutting out. This was unsatisfying so we tried the a point behind that one and midway between the chimney breast and opposite wall; this seemed to far back so we compromised on halfway between these extremes.

As luck would have it, the hole I drilled went directly through the centre of one of the rafters making this location suitable for heavier fixtures when we decide what we really want in there.

Anyway, in addition to the old through-hole (inexplicably right next to the west facing window, if you look in the above photo) we also had to fill in holes for shade mounts and the old radiator mounts plus extend the wall plaster to the height of our slightly smaller skirting boards.

This will need to cure a week or so then we can carry on painting the hovel.