1. House renovation - front of house

Late February 2017 SS and I were in South Africa as our tenant was moving out.  I had decided it would be a great idea to do the damp repair and redecorating work on the property myself, and I dragged my poor mother over from Australia to help.  I spent the first week on damp repair, and sugar soaping all the walls, sanding cupboard doors and undercoating where I could.  Mum arrived and got stuck in as well.  After 4 days of both of us working hard, we got the experts in to finish off the last coats and the skirtings.  Huge transformation from dated cottage with dark brown timber features and skirtings, old front door with no working locks, and putty coloured walls to light, bright house.  I also washed all the curtains and changed all the door handles and locks (external and internal)...
Most of this does not require explanation, so here we go - in each case by room I will show before, during and after shots.
First up, the outside front of the house.  This included sanding, undercoating and painting all the shutters and windows, as well as the door and security door.  Plus the garage door.  Mum also painted the flower pots, and we tidied the garden after heavy winds.  Note there is a drought in South Africa hence the dry grass - there is a hosepipe ban in place.
First up - front door and living room window. Before and during...



And the finished product...

 Next, the garage door:  before and during:

And then after:

And then the rest of the windows and shutters:  before and during and after:

And some wider photos showing a before of the brown wood everywhere vs the fresh grey and cream paint after the works were done - such a pretty little cottage now!

2. Living room re-do

The biggest issue in the living room was a large patch of paint in the front corner which was peeling off and showing the evidence of some past water issues (I hope! Given it is a drought it could just be that there has been no leaks lately...).  So the first week of work for me was scraping off the peeling paint, sealing the wall, filling the holes and depressions left, re-sealing ready for painting.  Plus washing down all the walls!  So here are the before putty coloured walls with dirty curtains, peeling wall, brown varnished skirtings and heavy feeling:

Here is the work I did on the damp patch:

Here are the painting works done on the rest of it, during the process:

And here are the after shots - no damp peeling paint, creamy skirtings, fresh white walls, and clean curtains...

3. Kitchen re-do

The kitchen itself was not too bad, but the walls were the same putty colour which made the room feel dark and dingy.  This room was the bane of Mum's life as she "volunteered" to clamber over the cabinets to do the fussy, fiddly painting.  I think we were both happy to get the professionals in to finish this room!
In each case I have done the same view (approximately) with the before, during, and after shots:

View 2:

4. Bathroom and hallway

I had originally had big plans to paint the tiles in the bathroom (which are a cheery, if dated, eggy yellow colour), but no way did we have time for that.  So we "just" painted the cupboard doors, door, door frames and changed the door handle...  But brightening the cupboard with shiny fresh cream paint did make a huge difference!

Then in the hallway it was a case of fixing the peeling paint at the end where the shower must have leaked, and painting the whole dark putty coloured area in fresh white, as well as painting all the doors, door frames and skirtings in fresh cream:

 nasty before putty walls...

And after:

5. Bedrooms re-do

There are 3 bedrooms, all with brown built in cupboards that looked like the owner had made them - solid and detailed but just a hint of the bespoke about them.  As they were two colours of brown involved, they drained the light from the rooms (as did the brown skirtings and putty walls again).  We started with the smaller front bedroom, then did the master (which also had damp peeling paint to fix on the shower wall), and then the back bedroom which is quite dark as the window is effectively under the garage roof.
All these cupboards needed sanding, undercoating, and then top coating with enamel.  We also changed the lower door knobs on each set in each room.
We also had to undercoat and paint all the door frames, doors, and change the handles on all the doors...
Here is the front bedroom, with the full wall of cupboards.  Before and after shots next to each other:

During:

Here is the master bedroom before and after next to each other:

Fixing the damp:

And undercoating and painting:

And last, the middle bedroom which is the dark one.  The white walls really brightened this one up, as did the cream room door, and cupboard doors.  Here is it before with nasty cupboards and mushroom coloured door, with the after shot next to it


During: