Oops, this blog post is long overdue! For the past month I’ve been working non-stop decorating the second bedroom so it’s been hard finding time to blog.

The room is quite small (3 metres by 2 metres) but for me it’ll be one of the most important places in the house – my study and a home for my books.

Here’s what the room looked like at the start.

Second bedroom

Convention dictates I should start with the first thing I did…

Step 1: getting rid of cat urine smells

I decided to rip up the carpet fairly quickly after moving in because of the pungent cat smell but it didn’t make much difference. The floorboards had obviously soaked up some of the cat urine from the previous furry occupants. To get rid of it, I made up a solution of warm water, bleach and floor cleaner and went over it with a mop. Then I let this dry and went over it again with a solution of warm water and white wine vinegar. Once this was dry I just used warm water and floor cleaner. Eventually the smell faded which meant we didn’t have to take up the Victorian floorboards.

As well as the carpet, something else which found its way into the skip that day was a modern pine fire surround. It was propped up against the wall but for some reason it fell over and landed bang on my ankle. I was so annoyed I just wanted rid of it as soon as possible!

Step 2: adding a new electrical socket

There was already one double socket in the room but it was nowhere near where I wanted my desk so I decided to install another one. It was a pretty easy job since I’d already taken off the skirting and the walls were just plasterboard which was easy to cut away. I added the new socket in the corner of the room in a more convenient location.

Installing a new wall socket