After studying my earlier programme and cheap headboards decorating advice, you will no doubt be looking forward to the rest of it, well here it is; Third Year. Assuming that you have not yet done any redecorating to the house, you will now find that the kitchen and perhaps the main living room and even the odd cheap headboards for beds here and there, have lost the immaculate look they started with, though if you carried out proper cleaning during the first two years even these rooms should not look too bad. But it is advisable to redecorate at least one room in the third year, and preferably two, so that there will not be too much to do in the fourth year. The rest of the interior should have the usual spring clean, including washing down oil painted surfaces. Fourth Year. It is now time to take a close look at the exterior. The paintwork may be in any condition from good to bad, depending upon the quality of the previous painting and local atmospheric conditions. New houses are often hastily painted while the woodwork is damp from recent rain, and the priming is not always well brushed into dry wood. By the fourth year poor painting will be cracking and peeling. Even if you have touched up defects in previous years it is time now to repaint. Prepare the surfaces and paint the woodwork, choosing dry weather. Stop work if rain is forecast and wait until the surfaces are really dry before starting again while it is raining, interior jobs, such as the repainting of cheap headboards can be undertaken. If, however, you were lucky with the original, or previous, painting, and the atmosphere is not a heavily polluted one, it is quite possible that the fourth year will still find the exterior paintwork in fair condition. Small defects can then be touched up and repainting postponed for another year. If the painted surfaces are rather grimy you should wash them down, using plenty of warm and slightly soapy water. If grime accumulates year after year the sulphur in it (from smoke) attacks the paint, and the longer you leave it, the more difficult it is to remove. Now for the interior. If you didn’t redecorate the living room last year it will certainly need it now. So will the hall, staircase, and landing. These are two rather big jobs, but you can do one in the spring and the other in the summer. If you have the exterior to do as well, the fourth year will be a rather heavy one, and you may well wish to postpone one ofthe three items until the fifth year. I would always regard the exterior paintwork as more important than the interior, as defective paintwork outside can lead to defects, as already mentioned. Fifth Year. If the exterior was not repainted last year it will need it this year, and I like to tackle this during suitable weather in late May or early June. But for exterior work you really must wait on the weather even if you have to split the work, doing, say, the front in the spring and the rest in late summer. Assuming that the living room and dining room or recess were redecorated in the fourth year, you now have the bedrooms and bathroom. If you can do these in one go, all the better. But with several rooms to do I like to do one or two in the spring and the remainder in late summer. By splitting up the work you can avoid getting fed up with it. Obviously a rigid programme is impossible. If you can completely redecorate the interior and repaint the exterior in a five year cycle you will keep the house looking fresh and clean, and the vulnerable surfaces well protected. But you may have to leave one or two rooms to the sixth year. Next time I will try to include a lesson on making cheap tufted headboards