What a rock and or roll lifestyle I lead. Today I got into the office in time to have meeting hell. This was punctuated by a two hour period in which there were no meetings. I tried to get myself sorted out for the tail end of the meeting hell, but ended up ordering some business cards online. They were, allegedly, free, but I suspect the shipping and handling fee were probably a way of paying for the manufacture too.

Yes. Business cards. How modern is that!?

Then more meetings. Then a conference call. And another meeting. And then a call on the way to the car.

Arriving home, I managed to motivate myself immediately into the painting. I painted the inside of the upstairs wardrobe/cupboard that I started painting yesterday. Then I went downstairs and painted the inside of the cupboard in the living room (I suspect this will become a book shelf for the books presently in Newcastle). I did a little filling of my bay windows and then retrieved a lot of paint from my garage. I'd bought plenty of paint yesterday in B&Q, and a lot of it was the same colours as that in my garage. The idea was to use the garaged stuff first, since it can't be taken back to B&Q and then use the new stuff if I needed it.

I headed up to my smallest room, which I'd decided to paint "Almost Oyster" a sort of pinky colour, which is warm but quite pale. I hoped to make the room seem no smaller, while avoiding it being a white box. The room has sloping ceilings, so I'd have to cut the colour into the white of the ceiling by some method. I'd bought masking tape, but I decided to do this task freehand, using a great big massive paintbrush.

This technique proved remarkably successful. It's a slow process, but after 90 minutes to two hours, I had a room which looked like it was one colour on its walls and another on its ceiling. I was so happy with the results as I was going along that I frequently exclaimed how good the results were as I was going along. There's nothing like a bit of positive reinforcement to keep you motivated.

The plan had been to use a colour called "Soft stone" in the slightly larger of the attic rooms. I've also used this colour before, and it's heading towards a brown, though it still has a light touch to it. I thought, perhaps, it would make the other room seem cosy, rather than small. However, I hit a quandary. Do I open a fresh pot of this new paint and then have to wash the brush and get a fresh roller? Or, do I acknowledge that I have a big big pot of "almost oyster" already on the go, from the garage (so it's already paid for) and just continue using the same tools.

On the basis of it being cheaper, easier and generally the right thing to do, I crossed the hall and did the opposite room. First coat.

If I'm honest, I got a bit tired, slapdash and generally less careful. There are some places in the other room where the accuracy suffered. However, both rooms look great. There's another coat to go on in both cases, but the transformation is amazing from rooms with a painted ceiling, but semi-transparent base-coat paint on the recently plastered walls, to where we are now.

When the painting is done in those rooms, I can fit new light switches, new light fittings and think about carpeting. The skirting boards and doors will be a big obstacle to the carpet, but the lighting will be a nice step forward too.

I'm hungry for the house to get to a more complete state... and soon. Then mabe my life will seem like it's more on an even keel.