bedroom

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…?!

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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:

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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.

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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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Master Bedroom gets a makeover

before and after, Decorating, Interior Design, Makeover

Farrow and Ball paint and things lurking under the stairs.

This week I was browsing a paint department, and happened upon a discounted 5L tin of Farrow & Ball’s ‘Brinjal’ matt emulsion.  This leaves me with 2 thoughts:

a) I need to get out more and stop loitering in paint departments when I have free time.

b) Loitering in paint departments can be seen as serendipity when bargains are to be had.

Anyhow, onto the paint… This is the most intense dark aubergine with red rather than blue tones, and I have always dreamt of doing a room in it.  Like an Olympian athlete I launched myself toward the paint pot it at high speed, and clutching my bargain I sped home.  I also managed to secure some bargains on some anthracite emulsion paint on sale, which have been stashed until I decide what to use them for, no doubt they will appear soon in a post….  (and if you don’t want to read through the procrastination and details, scroll down to the bottom of the post for the before and after photos.)

This is what the colour look likes… wow, it’s dark…

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Photo: Brinjal by F&B photo from Farrow and Ball Decorating with Colour by Ros Byam Shaw

The Existing Room

The Master bedroom is already shades of Khaki, (this paint is called Drab), with aubergine accents, but it has been like that for quite a while, so I thought I would use the paint to overhaul the room.  The ceilings are really tall, and the expanse of white from the picture rail upwards to the ceiling sort of annoys me, as the rest of the colours get lost in the room as the eye automatically goes up to the brightness and it is so WHITE.  I love aubergine, so decided to paint out the khaki walls with the new paint, but to leave the wardrobes as they are.  So I am sort of reversing the colour scheme.  I am happy with where the furniture is and accessories, so it is just a case of the walls and woodwork being changed.

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Guest room overhaul part 1

Decorating, Makeover

I have a small second spare guest room that is languishing at the top of the house, and one that tended to get used as a dumping ground for all the things I mean to sort out one day, but never get around to doing.  I needed to make it dual purpose as both a room with a piano for my daughter to practice in, (thanks to my godaughter who has lent us one…) and also as a workable spare room.

The room is in the eaves of the house, so it has an angled ceiling and walls, and a dormer window.  It has always been a cream and pale blue scheme, with patterned sisal carpet.  There is a cunning daybed which opens out either into 2 x singles or into a double, (and this is only used at Christmas and Easter when relatives overflow, as we have another larger guest room for visitors to use throughout the year).

The shelves made it really cluttered to add a piano into the mix, so I had a serious purge and cleared them all out and removed the shelves.  I then worked around the existing carpet, bed, artwork and chest of drawers to come up with a new scheme that was fresher and more spacious.  I wanted to keep the paintings which are by family members, they already have a blue theme in their colours, plus beautiful maple and gilded frames.

The mission:

To spend as little as possible on raw materials, and to refresh the room using whatever I had lying around the house.  I did a rough moodboard to keep my mind focused.

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Decorating:

I found a great wallpaper called ‘Charlotte‘ to use on the back wall where the shelves once stood.  It is a light blue paisley on white and cost only £18 a roll from B&Q, plus it is paste the wall paper which is amazing, (first time I have used paste the wall paper and it is SO easy). It took less than an hour to whack it up and I only needed one roll.  I then repainted the remaining walls in First Dawn by Dulux, which is pretty much an exact match for the pale blue used in the wallpaper.  The woodwork was all repainted in Farrow and Ball’s Wimborne White, which is quite a bright white for them.  The room instantly looked fresher, brighter and bigger.

Total cost: £56.41

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It’s Official. I don’t get a kick out of neutrals anymore….c

Colour, Decorating, Inspiration, Interior Design

Something has changed – it could be hormonal, or maybe I have had a small stroke and a part of my brain has switched to a new dimension, but I just cannot get enthused at the moment with natural shades and calm interiors. Neutrals are great for making things look spacious, calm and restful, but I just don’t seem to want them anymore.  I want drama, colour and eclecticism.

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