Hi! I’m Adora from Gingerbreadmum. I live in a 3-room HDB flat with my husband and 2 very noisy and energetic little kids. This is the story of how my living room turned from dark and gloomy to the brightest, sunniest, happiest and most used room in the house. Here’s what our living/dining room looks like now – we love it!
This is what our living room looks like now after being painted with Dulux Wash and Wear.
Our newly painted and transformed sitting area
Our new beginning
We were newly weds when we first moved into our apartment. We fell in love with it at first sight – or rather, we fell in love with the idea of living in this neighbourhood. The house itself needed plenty of work. I grew up in a house with white walls and knew that when I finally got my own home, I would steer clear of white. So our living room was painted in earthy tones and our bedroom – would you believe it – was painted a deep red (bring on the romance!).
This was taken just before the painters arrived.
Our goal then was to go for dark colours in the hope of bringing about a feeling of cosyness, a place that we could relax with our feet up at the end of the day. On hindsight, what we failed to do was to find out how much sunlight the rooms got. Our dining area is situated away from the window and we soon realised there were times that we would have to have the light on during the day, and that bothered me.
Some memories leave a mark on our hearts; others leave a mark on our walls.
Over the years, we tried all kinds of things to brighten the room like switch our brown couch for a white one, but we kept pushing the idea of repainting away. It was too much hassle having to clean up to prepare for a paint job. Plus, our walls weren’t in all that bad shape, and somehow, something or other always got more priority.
Among us all, it was Poppy, our 6-year old, who was most sentimental about this wall!
With Dulux, not only is the repainting done by professionals they also reassured us that we wouldn’t have to arrange for our furniture to be carted out, this really seemed too good to be true.
Another thing that we really appreciated was that during the assessment appointment, they discovered damages to our wall which was caused by water seepage from cracks, they even offered to repair our walls so as not to affect the painting process.
We were so grateful that they not only did it but also advised that we sought the help of a waterproofing expert since what they did was only temporary. I would not have known what kind of contractor to look for if they had left me to do it on my own.
If you have any questions about your walls, do share them with the team when they visit your home for the assessment. Dulux not only paints but can also assists in minor wall repairs to achieve a beautiful paint finish if required at an additional fee, this will make things easier for families considering painting, as they would not need to engage another contractor for wall repairs.
Read the rest of my painting journey with Dulux on the next page.
Ultimately, after going through what seemed like 50 different shades of white with Dulux’s professional colour consultants, we finally found the white we wanted. We informed Dulux and a painting date was set.
Also, I re-checked if I had heard correctly, and that we absolutely really wouldn’t need to move any of our furniture around. Yup, I wasn’t dreaming. Apart from removing decorative items (and other dust traps) from our wall shelves, we didn’t do anything else.
But then the day of the painting rolled by, and I couldn’t just not do anything. I mean, I’m the sort who cleans up a little before our part-time cleaner comes by. So we removed what we could, dusted where we could, and let the professionals do their thing.
They laid a carpet around to protect our floors, then moved our furniture
They taped up the skirting of our floors, as well as our powerpoints
They moved everything to the centre of the living room (which gave us space to walk around), and covered everything up.
Look – they even covered the lights!
They even helped to remove some wall shelves and nails from the wall where pictures hung (we asked them to, thinking it would make the painting easier – it did), as well as patched up the holes. Yippee!
Then they got to work. They did a base coat and two further coats of the colour we chose. It seems our previous colour was a little dark, so they had to paint over that many times.
I lingered around, pottered around the house while peeping at the painters. There was a very faint smell of paint during the entire painting process, a far cry from not too long ago when paint fumes caused such bad headaches that people were advised to stay away for days. The smell stayed on for a few days more but it was so faint that our daily routines weren’t affected at all. Except to stop and exclaim “I love my new walls!”.
In less than 5 hours, 2 men fixed my walls, moved all my furniture, painted my entire living room, moved all the furniture back, and helped me sweep the floor. And then they left and it was just me in my bright new living room.
It felt like I had a new house!
Blank walls! Oh, the possibilities! I stared at this wall uncomfortably for a week, wondering how best to dress it up.
The painting may have been over, but I was itching to do more. Getting our walls painted stirred something in me – I got bitten by the makeover bug and over 2 weeks, went all around in search of all kinds of things to bring more personality to our living room. My family absolutely loves hanging out in the living room together now – we play board games on the carpet as a family, the kids do forward rolls on the sofa, and my husband and I set up temporary work stations at the dining table after the kids have gone to bed, and enjoy the lovely view of our new living room.
Had I known having a refreshing wall colour would spur us to do so much to give our living room such a wonderful transformation, we would have done this so much earlier!
If you’d like to read more about the things we did to create our living room, including where we bought our furniture and fittings from as well as how we made our own art pieces, check out part 2 of our living room makeover here.
Check out the details of a special promotion from Dulux on the next page.
Thinking of re-painting your home but don’t know where to start? To help you visualise your new walls, Dulux is offering two very cool things: a free colour consultation (where you take a photo of your wall, and email it to them with your choice of colour, and they send you an image of your wall in that colour! How cool is that!), and a free app called the Dulux Visualizer where you can see your walls in any colour before they get painted.
Picture your walls in your favourite colours with the Dulux Visualizer app.
Got kids? Consider the Dulux Wash and Wear with new KidProof Technology™ which makes cleaning of walls much easier, so you can rest easy even when you discover your walls have been used as a canvas.
Paint and save more than $600!
Check out this amazing deal on Dulux Painting Packages!
From now until 28 Feb 2015, Dulux is offering a special promo where you’ll enjoy savings up to $600 for their painting packages. Prices start at $850 for 3-room flats; visit the Dulux website or call 6265 0677 for more details. Or check them out on Facebook for more updates.
Quote AT002 to get an additional $30 off the price!
Disclaimer: I received a complimentary painting package for my living room, and was compensated for writing this post. All opinions and pictures as well as bright new walls, new furniture and sighs of contentment while sitting on my sofa are my own.
This review was written by mummy blogger Adora Tan of https://www.gingerbreadmum.com.
Have you used the Dulux Wash and Wear paint to give your home a fresh makeover? Let us know what you think of it by leaving a comment below!
