How a pot of paint can cause chaos…

before and after, Colour, Decorating, Interior Design, interiors, Makeover

In the last couple of weeks I decided to repaint my sitting room. It has been the same colour for ages, and I felt an update was in order. I am getting very drawn to orange at the moment, and as the room has a lot of light and high ceilings, I felt that it could take a dark tone and create a different feel to the existing colour. This is the room as it was…

It was originally painted in Drab, a now discontinued Farrow & Ball paint. I chose a strong orange by Valspar called Storybook Sundown to replace it. I have orange elsewhere in the room in the rug, upholstery and cushions and this colour complimented them the best…

So with 5 litres I started to paint. You know that moment when you think ‘Hmm, not sure if I am liking this…?”, well it came pretty soon after the first coat. I have been so used to the previous colour and this is so out of my comfort zone that I started to to think I had made a mistake. But I decided to continue to see what would happen.

BUT… once it was done I loved it. Really vibrant, rich and cocooning.

Now this is where the chaos started… when I say chaos I mean a nuclear chain of events starting from the initial one pot of paint. My sofa now looked really insipid against all of the other bright colours. The room needed something stronger/darker in colour/tone to work with these walls. The current sofa is a Wesley Barrell Knole, and cost a huge amount when purchased. It is quite tired now and has been an old faithful for over a decade, so I thought this would be the time to revamp it. Investigations into re-upholstering it revealed it costs as much if not more to do as getting a new sofa. The seat cushions alone cost £500 for new inserts, not to mention 15m of fabric and upholstery costs.

Egged on by my daughter we set out to find a new sofa. On my wish list the main priority was NEVER HAVING TO EVER PLUMP ANOTHER CUSHION AGAIN. This has been the bane of my life with sofas, and actually if I add the hours spent doing it I could have learnt a new language or trekked across a country instead. So number one priority was a sprung seat and back sofa.

Research then ensued; size, shape, fabric, finish, durability… The internet is great for hunting, but I want to see them in the flesh too and sit on them to see if they are comfortable. A bit like Goldilocks and her chairs – too firm, too soft or just right? A sofa is a big expense as well, so once a shortlist had been made we set off in the car on a sofa bouncing mission.

Stop one was a high street store that had not been on my wish list, but was on the way to another shop. As we mooched about I spotted the perfect sofa; sprung, buttoned and available in the fabric I wanted. It was in DFS, is called the Trafalgar and is a modern version of the chesterfield with buttoned seat and back, plus proper springing. The shape is more angular than the traditional rounded chesterfield but that is why it looks so nice.

The detailing is lovely, with upholstery studs along the front:

But this colour is too pale and I wanted a richer more textural fabric. And voila, in their books I found:

The perfect velvet; not shiny like a lot of modern versions but lustrous and deepest black. And so reader, I ordered one.. and it comes in about 6 weeks to reface the old faithful Knole sofa (which incidentally is going to a very good home where it will be loved for many more years).

So that was Chaos Element No 1. This pot of paint has now cost me a new sofa.. but it doesn’t end there. I like the idea of adding in more black to define the room, so black lampshades have now been ordered for the lamps around the room in black, and passementerie trimmings have been ordered to jazz them up. That’s Chaos Element No 2.

On top of that I have now started hunting for new curtains to add more drama and tie up the room visually as the current ones are lovely, but look quite pale now compared to the other colours going on in the room, and that’s a 10ft tall bay window to negotiate as a starter. Not something you can use readymades on easily… so let’s call that Chaos Element No 3. I’m thinking watered black silk puddling on the floor would be a bit special…

With that I will sign off, as I need to plan how to create these curtains on a budget, but so they don’t look it. All this from just one pot of paint…

Stairs & Landings – the ‘nearly’ finished results…

before and after, Decorating, gallery wall, House Tour, interiors, Makeover

In my earlier post, you may have been aware of my procrastination about finishing off the top floor of my hall and stairs. But it is finally done, with some serious hanging off bannisters paining techniques. I forced myself to start yesterday, and it is now finished, well very nearly….

This was looking up to the next level before I changed the wall colours. That wallpaper which is in in the strange ‘door-to-nowhere” architrave is going to change too, I have ordered some samples of eye-wateringly expensive wallpaper from the lovely Fabricsandwallpapers.com and we’ll see what works best when they arrive. They are all very large scale patterns:

cole-son-lily-wallpaper-95-4020-111458-p

I am really forgetful about before and after shots as I tend to dash in with paintbrushes on a whim. So I don’t have any photos of the floor above pre-makeover! Probably as it was always such a dumping ground, it had loads of overflowing bookcases, an electric piano in pieces, and I never really liked it so never photographed it. Sorry….😐

Anyhow, I cleared out all of the books and had a huge cull so there are boxes and boxes ready to go off to charity shops, and I removed 2 out of 3 bookcases. I had to keep hubby’s collection of comics, books and coca-cola limited edition bottles, plus we had a lot of film posters and things to hang. This is now what it looks like looking down the stairs with the dark grey walls.

And here is the artwork. The weird original Harry Potter troll picture was a present to my daughter from her Godfather, who got it from the art/concept designer Rob Bliss from the films. If you look carefully, he has pierced nipples, which Warner Brothers obviously asked him to tone down for the final film! It scared my daughter to bits when she got it, so it has been hiding in the loft until now. That is the bonus of having older teens, I can put whatever I want on the walls now without fear!

At the top of the stairs is an odd landing which goes nowhere, a bit like the door mid-way down the stairs. What is it about my house and places going nowhere? Originally this landing had 3 full size bookcases on it, now it has been reduced to one, And I have hung the strangest huge anatomical drawing/chart on it which the hubby gave me, and until now I had no idea what to do with. But I think he looks great against the red carpet!

It looks so much better than before. There is no natural daylight in this landing, so I was a bit worried about how dark it would be with the grey walls. But it looks bigger in a strange way as the corners vanish with the dark grey. I kept the original wall light which was a converted victorian gas light, and got 2 excellent wire cages to go on the top from eBay. The ceiling is white so light can bounce around still, so it’s not dark at all.

The bookcase generally houses Hubby’s stuff, and I have moved the books I saved for myself elsewhere so it looks much more spacious now – althought somewhat random items are on it…

Processed with VSCO with c1 preset

I’ll do a final post when the wallpapers have come, and I have decided what to do with the ‘door-to-nowhere’. I also have the odd corner wall to hang something on so I am hunting for something large like a mirror to go on it, or maybe a lovely bit of taxidermy.

Hallway – New Decoration Project Is Underway

Art, Decorating, Interior Design, interiors, Makeover, Property

So as we are now staying put in our home, I have been itching to get going on some revamping. And I have the perfect project to get my teeth into.

Our hallway is quite large, and stretches up through 3 floors, with the staircase splitting off in two directions after the first flight of stairs. It is not a typical narrow Victorian hallway and stairs, and there is a lot of space and ceiling a minimum of 3 meters tall on the ground and first floors. When we first came to the house it was painted a sickly aqua green, so I redecorated it in pale taupe and white on the woodwork to neutralise it. But it is now a long time since it was done, so I have decided to crack on and give it an overhaul.

Ground Floor

It has great original floorboards, stained glass windows either side of the original front door and original panelling on the sides of the stairs. It’s large enough to take a huge period cabinet and a sideboard. The stairs are original with 2 spindles per step, (takes an age to paint them though). The stair carpet was inherited with the house, and is a very rich dark red Wilton attached with Victorian stair rods on the first flight. Then it goes full width up through the rest of the halls and stairs above. As anyone who knows me is aware, I have a love-hate relationship with this carpet. It is amazing quality, and looks like new after well over 7 years, and that is since we have been here and it existed pre-us. But I have 2 cats called George and Mildred, and EVERY hair they drop shows on it, so I have to hoover a lot. I always wanted to replace it with sisal when it got tired, but the quotes were really high to get it laid well and with multiple angles needed, and it shows no sign of looking shabby yet so I am holding on for the moment. It has also survived many children, teenage parties and flailing carrying of coffee and tea by the said teens. So I’m stuck with it for now.

Very pale taupe walls

The red stair carpet with brass rods

My huge old cabinet filled with ‘stuff’

First Floor

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Teenager’s Room & Spare Room Makeovers

before and after, chalk paint, Decorating, grown up, Interior Design, interiors, lighting, Makeover, recycling, Upcycling

THE CHALLENGES:

My youngest has always had one of the smallest bedrooms in our house. I think that is generally what younger children get actually in the pecking order of families! Poor them… they are definitely overlooked a lot…. she also always got hand me down clothes for years, but I did always get her new undies and socks!

Our eldest has now moved out to go to Uni, and will only be back home for holidays, so we thought it time to do some switching around of bedrooms. We have 5, so are a bit spoilt for choice, but the youngest had always had what could be called a very small double. She is also VERY messy, so it was a question of bribery… ‘if you tidy your your room and keep it up for a while, you can move into a larger room…” It worked, and she made an effort, so I had to honour my word.

This then escalated and became a massive upheaval over Christmas, it actually always sort of escalates when I start fiddling around… I also had a pretty weeny budget and needed to be able to re-use and re-purpose existing items if possible. An existing spare room, (which had been decorated for my mum mainly when she stays over in a very granny-friendly style), was to become my youngest daughter’s room as it was much larger. And as such, it was not teenage friendly in terms of style. Here it is as it was… see what I mean…?!

And my daughter’s existing room was then meant to switch back over into being a spare room again.. this is the other room when my daughter was in it:

Crammed, no decent storage and hideous fake brick wallpaper which I reluctantly agreed to a couple of years ago as I was in no mood to chip off all the plaster for real. So definitely time for a change.

DAUGHTERS NEW BEDROOM:

I was shown pinterest boards with the most white, zen and minimalist interiors of dream bedrooms. ‘Wow’, I said, ‘NICE!’… But was I was really thinking was…’Yes, of course – it’s not like you don’t have loads of STUFF… and that STUFF does not stay in the allocated places usually.. and the STUFF is added too with lots of my china filled with various stages of decaying MOULD”…

But I agreed as she had tried to be clean, and then spent 2 days bent at odd angles totally whitening out the room. I forgot how much I hate rolling paint onto ceilings. 3 coats later, we had pure white. The floor is already lovely old pine stripped boats, and there is a pretty original fireplace and victorian sink.

We got her a new bed and mattress, and then I hunted through the house and found an oak desk, a beautiful needlepoint rug that I forgot I had and has been in the attic for years, cut work white curtains and a freestanding clothes rail (she wanted that sort of look, forget the dust!). The mirror was originally taupe, and it got a quick coat of Annie Sloane’s Graphite for an update.

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Chinese Chippendale Chair Makeover

before and after, Decorating, DIY, Interior Design, Makeover, recycling, Soft furnishings, Upcycling

A couple of weeks ago I was up really early doing an MOT on the car, and I had to wait a while for them to do it, so I went for a walk around my town. There is a furniture junk shop, which occasionally has some OK bits in it, and I meandered in for a nosey. At the back of the room, on its own was a chair. Not just any chair, but a Chinese Chippendale one.

This is the Jonathan Adler chair currently selling at £795

For those that follow the blog, you may remember my lustings for a set of Jonathan Adler Chippendale chairs. I managed to find a set of similar style bamboo chairs when I revamped my dining room and gave them a makeover, you can read about it here. Whilst they are lovely, they are quite large and not totally the real thing. The real ones are wood carved to look like bamboo with grooves and notches.

This is my earlier bamboo chair makeover

But this morning, this was the real thing. It is made in solid carved maple with a very girly upholstered seat, and I think it is late 20th century. Incredibly well made and sturdy, and the shape was totally the one it should be.

The man in the shop told me it had come from a very smart house in a very smart village nearby. And I could have it for £15. I kept a straight face and asked him to set it aside. He then mentioned there had been another 5 but they had already been sold individually…. GAH! I could have wept, but never mind I still got one at least. I then skipped off to collect my car, and didn’t even mind that it had failed the MOT and needed new tyres. As I waited to get the car fixed I was already scheming on what to do with my new chair when I got it home.

So here it is on its arrival home. It is very 80’s looking in colour and fabric. So straight away I removed the seat and stripped it back. Underneath is another fabric nasty, but I will leave it as a base for new upholstery.

Colours for upholstery

Previously I did my dining room chair versions painted white with groovy Thibault orange, orange and green irate fabric and cut velvet cushions. But this new chair needs to be moved around the house, where colours are darker and more traditional. It will probably start off in the sitting room. I am having an armchair upholstered at the moment for the same room in a large scale raised velvet damask and velvet, so I have some spare fabric available. The colours are spiced orange and neutral taupe. Thus it makes sense to use some of it on the chair as it will live in the same room.

Colours for the wood

Again, I don’t want it to look like the dining room chairs, although these chairs do look great in crisp white or a zingy bright colour. I have a few pieces of painted dark charcoal furniture which I really like so I decided to do a modern take on an ebonised Chinese chair.

And so, out comes the trusty Annie Sloan chalk paint. I have a pot of Graphite which is like the magic porridge pot in the fairytale.. It just keeps coming and never runs out.

A good sand was done all over first, as although chalk paint doesn’t really need it, this chair will get used a lot, so key areas that will be handled such as the armrests need to be have the paint really well attached.

A wipe down, and coat number one was put on, diluted 20% with water to get a smooth finish.

This paint dries very fast and looks very matt and chalky. After a couple of hours it was bone dry so I applied another coat which was not so diluted. Once that was dry, I applied Annie Sloan clear wax all over the painted areas with a brush so I could get it into all the nooks and crannies.

Once that it done it is buffing time. This is where you can chose how much lustre you want with the finish. I use a simple J-Cloth and polish away. You can almost feel the wax harden as you go. Once polished, leave it to harden more overnight.

Reupholstering a drop-in seat

This is where staple guns are the most amazing invention. I simply cut a square of fabric about 3″ larger than the seat pad, and made sure the design was centred on the fabric that will become the cover. Then you place that face down on your working surface, put the seat upside down on top and start pulling the fabric over and stapling it. I always start on each corner first with a holding staple and work diagonally so the fabric is pulled tight. Do the sides first and leave the folding corners until last

When you get to do the folded corners, its a bit like doing a hospital bed sheet. My seat had a shaped corner to the front so it was a little tricky, but you can always undo the staples if you are not happy until you get the neat edge you want. Pull it really tight as you staple. You need to get the seat to drop back into the chair frame so it cannot be too bulky.

The finished chair

Here she is… the whole project took a weekend, and out of that only about 6 hours was working on it. Much of the other time was waiting for the paint and wax to dry, interspersed with some Netflix box set bingeing…. I love it, and when I get bored with it , it will be really easy to repaint and re-upholster. Long live junk shops!

Most Hit Posts of 2016

before and after, Decorating, DIY, Flowers, Ideas, Inspiration, Makeover, plaster, Soft furnishings, tutorial

Today I have been looking back at last years blogging, sometimes done a bit intermittently I must admit, and noticed that the most popular posts always seem to be the DIY ones, so here is a round up of the ones that still get the most hits, and I only hope that as a result there are many Ikea hacks, Plaster Flowers and No-sew curtain pelmets floating out there now! More DIY ideas coming soon as I tackle a spare bedroom in the coming months.

Click on the photos to take you to the posts and tutorials…

DIY Plaster of Paris Flowers

No-Sew Curtain pelmets

Ikea Hack Bookcase

Ikea Hacked Bookcase

Slate Effect Painted Fireplace

Moppe Drawer Makeovers

Using Moppe drawers as wall art

Creating a Gallery Wall

accessories, Art, before and after, Decorating, gallery wall, Interior Design, interiors, Makeover, Paper Art, Street Art, taxidermy

Once Upon a time…

I used to help out at an Art Gallery where the positioning and hanging of the art was as important as the pictures themselves. I think that apart from basic hanging ‘rules’ about eye levels not being too high, hanging pictures is a very personal thing. However some people get very nervous about putting up art, so here is hopefully a helping hand…

Here is my latest area where I am going to create a gallery wall, a finishing-off part of a dining room makeover. You can read about the main bulk of work doing the room here. After finishing the room I was left with a really large wall which has a mirror and two very large formal prints on it placed very formally. I do like them, but wanted to create more interest and jazz it up a bit. In fact, I noticed that when I was trying to find photos of that wall, I had hardly any as it was never that inspiring, so that is a bit telling!

I want to create a gallery wall that is much more contemporary, and uses a variety of artwork and interesting pieces. I find I always lean towards hanging art very symmetrically and I suppose that is my comfort zone, but this time I am intentionally going to offset the pieces and push the boundaries for myself.

Can I apologise in advance for glare on the photos, the wall faces a large french window and the reflections were murder in my pictures!

Before

So you can sort of see the wall in the back of the pictures, and it is definitely time to make it more interesting. It is nearly 4 metres wide and has 1.7 metres clear vertically in the dado to picture rail space There is a radiator below the dado rail bang in the middle, and I might have get a cover made for it as it does stick our like a sore thumb, but that can be a later project. I know some people paint their radiators in the same colour and paint as the wall behind, so that could be an option…

STEP ONE

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Dining Room Makeover – Before & After

before and after, Colour, Decorating, DIY, House Renovation, Interior Design, interiors, Makeover, Upcycling

Colour Changes & Furniture Makeover

My dining room is a multi-tasking space and so it is also a crafting room, office, homework spot and sewing space. So it has to work hard, yet be ready to switch back to a dining room in a second. Here it is in its current incarnation:

It has very tall ceilings, 3 meters, so the curtains on the french windows are always a challenge. The existing ones are goblet headed and were made to measure. The main wall colours are a pale stone colour with paler toned woodwork and wooden floorboards. The furniture is a mixture of antique woods and painted pieces. That huge dresser has to stay as it is the only wall clear in the house for its monumental proportions. I have already updated the fireplace with a paint effect, changing it from brown pine to make it look like slate.

English Home - 09

Then after a while I got bored with the fireplace wall and painted it a deep olive which I liked as my convex mirrors looked lovely against it.

Anyhow, after a couple of years I have decided that I am bored with the same room. Who else gets that?! As I am in the room so much, I wanted to look up and see something else. I also could not be bothered to redecorate the whole room, mainly as there is so much furniture and stuff to get out to clear the room that it becomes a major operation.

Chairs

As mentioned in my last post, I found some chairs that I thought I could do a good makeover on, and they would replace the incredibly formal Georgian chairs that I inherited from my grandparents. In my mind they would go from dark wood to Jonathan Adler inspired pieces:

After washing them down with sugar soap, I started to paint them by hand and used a satin finish water based wood paint instead of the usual chalk paint. Wow, nightmare! I would have been painting them up until Christmas as they were very fiddly and they would have needed 4-5 coats by hand. So I then hunted around for a paint spraying company, and found a couple within 50 miles, but that then meant hiring a van to get the chairs to them and back, plus extra costs. There had to be another way…. and then I found this beauty…

This is the most wonderful thing, a Wagner paint sprayer. I braved it, as I have never used one before, and purchased one.

It is really simple to use, you just dilute the paint, (about 10% water to my water-based satin wood paint), pop it in the white container and off you go. I built a very basic spray booth in the garden, (stepladders with dust sheets one them), and sprayed 6 chairs in an afternoon. It was a sunny but very windy day, so the paint dried in an hour between coats. The wind meant I looked like I was covered in fine snow from paint blow-back, and even the cats looked a bit whiter at the end of the day. I also learnt not to get too close on the first coat as sometimes drips appeared and ‘less is more’. But the result was amazing:

Any drip marks were sanded out after the first coat, and then the chairs sprayed again. Job done. This is a great machine, and no doubt many more things will get sprayed soon, including passing cats.

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My best bargain purchases…

Auctions, bargains, before and after, Makeover, recycling, Upcycling

Or, Thank You to charity shops and modern house builders…

As summer slows to a halt and I start moving indoors more, I have started to cast the eye over the house once more. You know the drill… time to start tweaking and changing and improving.

I have had a bit of a purge recently of overflowing cupboards, and whilst doing it I noticed that a lot of my furniture and household items are bargains bagged from charity shops, auctions and even the odd skip. Not a lot is new at all, not that I would not love to go on a splurge in some of my favourite shops.

Most items of furniture that I have found have been mainly tall or long, and lingering in junk shops. We have very high ceilings in our house, so the taller pieces of furniture fit brilliantly and most people cannot fit them into their modern homes. As long as the basic shape of a piece is good, then it is amazing what some paints effects or a refurbishment can create. My friend Gaby has the best comment for when a bargain priced item is found, she says “it would be rude not to…”. Therefore in the politest fashion I can justify snapping things up.

This very tall Victorian glazed mahogany cabinet came from a Charity shop. No-one else wanted it as it is a whopping 10 feet tall. I backed the inside of the cupboard with some printed burlap that I had left over from an upholstery project, and it was ready to use. Total cost £90

In the hallway, this orange-toned pine sideboard was very large and lingering in another charity shop. A dash of Annie Sloane graphite chalk paint that I already had, and it was transformed. Total Cost: £80

Whilst at the same shop, I also snapped up this large mirror for just £10, a lick of paint transformed it:

This armoire came from the same charity shop as the tall glazed mahogany cabinet. A makeover with some leftover chalk paint, and a beautiful wallpaper in the panels turned it into a real gem. Cost: £40 for the cupboard and £42 for the wallpaper on sale down from £90, (costly wallpaper, but I loved it!). So a total of £82.

Wallpapered Armoire

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Removing Garden Decking…

before and after, DIY, garden landscaping, landscaping, Makeover, recycling, Renovation

Or, where big spiders really live…

When we moved to our current house, the prior owner had been a bit of a gardening wizard. She even opened the garden to the public in the National Garden Scheme whereby money is raised for charity by allowing the public into homeowners private gardens. No pressure then to try and keep up her good works!

Fast forward a few years, and I think the garden is not quite what it was – although I do try hard to keep it up. One area especially had become very tatty, some decking next to the house. England is just not a good place to have wood as flooring outside; there is just too much water and damp, and it becomes slippery, green and needs a lot of TLC. So for a few years I have dutifully stripped it back and re-oiled it each year, but even that did not really help it survive. It started bowing and felt quite unsafe, so the joists below had definitely started to rot.

Here it is already looking quite tired:

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Emma Kayne

The Department of Designs

Makeover

How a pot of paint can cause chaos…

Stairs & Landings – the ‘nearly’ finished results…