The best garage bar none?

Chris Jones of C.I.J Painting & Decorating Services sent us photos of a garage conversion he was recently asked to complete the decoration of. We were interested to learn more about the work involved, so got back in touch with him...

The private property in Hagley near Stourbridge, where I’m based, recently had a unused triple garage and office space converted to become an entertaining and social space.

As well as completing the decorating, I was also tasked with organising the carpenter, plasterer, pump and bar installers, which actually helped me keep things moving along and avoid unexpected waiting around for other trades to finish their parts.

The rooms are part of a period cottage, so the client requested that the colour scheme should match the rustic feel of the rest of the home, which had a light and neutral palette.

Once the plastering had thoroughly dried for a few weeks I returned to work on the ceiling, first with a mist coat and then spray finished using Dulux Trade Diamond Matt in Timeless, a very light neutral cream. The skirtings, door frames and base structure of the bar were then installed by MSC Trades, so I then set about priming all of these. After mist coating the walls, most of them were also finished using the same Dulux Timeless as the ceilings, but this time by brush and roller. I made feature walls of the two of the former garage door spaces, by painting these in Little Greene French Grey Dark to match the front of the bar, which also carried through to the doors in the side room.

The French doors in the main room, and other oak doors were all coated with Osmo Polyx-Oil Clear Satin. The bar top needed extra protection and a change of colour, so this was first stained in Osmo Dark Oak before applying three coats of Sadolin PV67 Heavy Duty Varnish to it.

Finally, door frames and skirtings were simply finished off with Johnstone’s Trade Aqua Satin in brilliant white.

As the entire project was essentially a new build and I was organising the other trades, there were thankfully no major obstacles to overcome or unforeseen difficulties that came up, so we had everything completed on time and within the original budget.

The client was very impressed with the finish and didn’t imagine it would turn out how as well as it did.

C.I.J Painting & Decorating Services are Members of the PDA, based in Stourbidge. You can find them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/cijpaintingdecorating/ or give them a call on 07527 474928