I’m a savvy mum & saved hundreds rebuilding my daughter’s crumbling nursery with £2.49 B&M PVA glue
IS there anything worse than a “quick” DIY job spiralling into a time-consuming nightmare.
That’s the very situation new mum Lisa Pocklington, 39, from Lincolnshire, found herself in when she began working on the walls for her newborn’s nursery – after quickly discovering they were literally crumbling away.
Lisa Pocklington, 39, from Lincolnshire, wanted to paint her newborn’s nursery[/caption] Lisa picked up budget supplies from B&Q and Homebase to fix them herself. Pictured, the finished nursery[/caption]“I had intended just to paint the nursery and chose my colours when shopping in Dunelm, as we were aware we were having a baby girl,” the substance misuse practitioner told money-saving community LatestDeals.co.uk.
‘I bought lots of accessories and a gorgeous second-hand chair off Marketplace which was from an old Jack Wills shop that had closed down in Lincoln…”
She continues: “I originally bought a tin of rose matt emulsion from Dunelm which was 2.5 litres and cost £14. I also bought a larger tub of white matt emulsion from Homebase to do the ceilings and three walls in the nursery in white. It was about £17.”
Lisa, who had recently moved into the old Victorian terrace, says that initially she was intending just to paint the walls, but noted how the whole house had lining paper.
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“I figured with the nursery being small, taking it off the one wall would give me an idea of what I was working with underneath. I thought, ‘it can’t be that bad under this paper?’ I was wrong,” she says.
“The lining paper wasn’t in great condition and was already peeling away. I started by removing a little strip of lining paper…so when I looked underneath that, it really didn’t look so bad.
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“Then as I peeled larger strips, I started to find screws in the wall and wall plugs that had been covered over.”
Lisa quickly realised she needed to keep peeling to see what else was hidden underneath.
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“For the bits of lining paper that were really stuck, I used Bartoline wallpaper stripper,” she explains. “You mix it with water and dab it on, and it melts away after about 15 minutes. This was great stuff for £2.99 from B&M.
‘As I got further along the wall by the window, a huge chunk of the wall came off with the paper like dust.
“Also around the plug sockets, there were holes and cracks. Between the socket and skirting it had previously been filled with expanding foam, which fortunately came out easily.
“That’s flammable, so I was pretty shocked it had been used there.
But Lisa soon turned to a guy on YouTube who described how to mix and use Gyproc.
“I so wanted to call in the tradesmen, but I persevered – I had to, as I can’t afford the real deal,” she explains. “I went to B&Q where, upon the recommendation from my mum, I bought a bag of Gypsum Gyproc EasiFill 60 which was £17 for 5kg.
“I bought a few tools, a filler knife, a bucket and a mouse sander for £20. All in all, I spent about £50 in B&Q as I did have some other tools already.
‘I also picked up another tin of lighter pink paint in B&M by Johnstones which was £10.”
Lisa says she proceeded to watch a few YouTube videos on how to fill walls and learned that the first step was to use a mix of PVA glue and water which you paint on the wall.
“This mix creates a surface that the filler will stick to. I got a huge tub of PVA from B&M for the job, and it was only £2.49,” she explains. “‘As per the instructions on the Gyproc, I mixed it a little thicker for any filling I first had to do.
“When the holes are filled and dried, you do a lighter mix, about the consistency of buttercream (I bake a lot, so this reference made sense to me) to smooth it all out. I did this on the huge holes I had, also around the plug sockets.
“When the wall had completely dried out – which with the Gyproc you can tell as it goes from a grey colour to white – I sanded it down using the mouse and a 120 grit pad.”
Finally, after filling and sanding the holes on the other walls and washing them down with sugar soap prior to painting, Lisa could get on with the original job.
“I painted the back wall and window wall with paint in the shade Rose, and the wall with the door and the opposite side in a lighter colour,” she says.
“I did two coats on each wall, and it was perfect. I removed the tape – I had picked up decorator’s masking tape for £3 from B&M – and all my lines were perfect.”
She adds: ‘I painted my woodwork with paint in the shade Eggshell. This was a tin I already had, which originally cost £14 from Homebase.
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“Once all the painting was done, I built all the flat pack furniture, hung up the curtains, and hung pictures and decorations.”
Lisa says if she’d had a professional tackle the entire room, she’d have expected it to be a minimum of £500 – and believes she saved hundreds doing it herself.
Lisa was left in shock when the walls began crumbling away[/caption] Lisa used a £2.49 tub of PVA glue from B&M which was used in the wall-filling process[/caption] The nursery before the makeover[/caption]