Is that a J Cloth on my head? Have my adventures in washing-up taken me to new levels of fashion strangeness? Or is it simply that I need something to protect my hair while I paint The Newly Finished and Long Awaited Studio?

I think the second one.

The building work happened so swiftly I haven’t been able to document each of the numerous stages between this:

and this:

But here, armed with paint I got at The Orinoco Scrap Store I am finally ready to begin the finishing! The Paint scheme at Orinoco is excellent; because of changes in legislation, paint is extremely expensive to dispose of. And if its perfectly usable still, it’s also wasteful. I always have a quandary as to whether or not it is better to buy organic paints – which are costly, but chemically better for the environment (and GORGEOUS to use) – or to use discarded paint that would otherwise have to be landfilled at great cost to the environment. It’s hard to do an entirely accurate costs/benefits analysis of this choice, but I’m pretty sure that anything which prevents waste and doesn’t entail further extraction and processing of raw materials (even if those raw materials ARE chemical…) is a good middle ground. So I’m using up old paints and I was even able to put together a colour scheme for the finished room based on some upholstery fabric offcuts I picked up (also from the scrapstore!) for making draught-excluders and curtains.

Tatami has proved to be an unsuitable item of clothing for any decorating. I didn’t even try to do any painting in it; just look at those sleeves and the 50/50 water paint mix that’s required to prime new plaster and the problems become obvious. The J Cloth on the other hand is wonderful attire for the painting task!

I love how the original window frame is entirely crooked; the wall around it is dead straight, and so is the sill. Which all highlight the incredible slant of the window… it is a great feature. I have quite a lot of restoration to do on this window, and I love how I can see the bird table I made with Mark from scrap wood and the mulberry tree we planted last year through the window.