Victorian Terrace Repaint, Didsbury

A West Didsbury Victorian terrace, three bedrooms, due a full interior repaint before the owners moved their new furniture in. The brief was a fresh, warm neutral scheme that worked with the period features — original picture rails, dado mouldings and skirting boards, plus the cornicing in the reception room and the front bedroom. Older woodchip and a few patches of dated patterned wallpaper had to come off the walls first, with the plaster underneath assessed for relining. The two main rooms needed lining paper to even out a century of patching and minor cracking before the topcoat would lay flat. Walls were finished in two full coats of trade-grade vinyl matt in a warm off-white through the living spaces and a slightly deeper warm grey in the master bedroom, with the cornicing and ceilings cut in by hand to keep the original profiles crisp. All the woodwork — skirtings, architraves, doors and the original staircase spindles — was prepared, knotting sealed, primed and finished in water-based eggshell so it would hold its colour over the years rather than yellowing under the eggshell-on-oil combination it had been re-coated with previously. The whole house was completed over eight working days, scheduled so the family could stay in the property throughout — rooms finished and signed off one at a time so something was always usable.