Greetings…I have written before about a doing a quick makeover on my daughter’s student flat last autumn, and have just spent the last 2 days finishing off a new makeover. What became really apparent since the last time was that good storage was needed, and some room shifting was a necessity as a result.
So the sitting room has become the bedroom as it a really good sized room, and it could take a lot of storage and still be spacious.
Here’s the room as it was when it was the sitting room…
There was a daybed, (incredibly uncomfortable either when in use as a sofa or a bed!), and lots of wasted space in the middle. The bedroom that was in use before looked like this:
It was sweet, but a smaller room and not brilliant for storage. So we decided to move the bedroom into the sitting room. The general style she likes is a bit of boho, a bit of Hygge and some bohemian all thrown into the mix.
THE PLAN
As I said before, the room is really big, so we decided to break the space by using a large room divider. A serious trip to IKEA resulted in a crazy amounts of boxes being delivered, and we spent an afternoon building a huge Kallax storage unit to break the space. It has 25 compartments and is 1.8m x 1.8m in size, but as you can see through the compartments it is not a solid block and let’s light through. We painted the wall where the bed would go in a blush pink, not sick sugary pink but dusky pale rose.
We also got a new bed from Ikea called Kopardal which is a very simple grey metal bedstead with an industrial come Hygge style. We did not really pay attention to the instructions, so 3 tries later it was finally built and my daughter was quite red in the face.. But she is now a master at flat packs, a valuable life lesson has been learnt….
We also filled up the IKEA order with lots of storage boxes and accessories for the Kallax, including some drawers and cupboards that slot into it to stash away things she did not want on view. Plus some new chairs, a kitchen table and other bits needed for the flat were added to the list. As per normal we went OTT on picture frames, (you can never have enough pictures!). We also discovered IKEA have a great new range of candles called NJUTNING, which are only £5.95 and smell amazing… roll over Diptyque – these are far more suited to student budgets! The only problem I have with IKEA is that you invariably leave with far more than you went in for, but I think everyone can relate to that.
These are amazing and so well priced
Next stop was H&M Home, where I thought I had died and gone to heaven… They have some excellent items this season, and we got new bedding and some brass accessories to use. This bed linen set is called Conscious and it is so pretty, so that was popped into the basket:
THE RESULTS
Here is the room as it is now. It has designated areas for sleeping, sitting, dressing, piano playing and putting on make up.
This is the bed area, with the pale blush wall setting off the bed nicely.
To the right of the bed is the huge room divider. This takes all clothes, books, records, and ‘stuff’ which is concealed in boxes, drawers and cupboards.
IKEA do these great brass hanging files for Kallax, perfect for the student room.
As space was tight either side of the bed for run of the mill side tables, we used an H&M Home brass basket as a wall hung bedside table.
Storage, storage and more storage. On the other side is a space with a piano in it.
Here you can see how the room divider sits in the space.
In once corner of the room is a dressing area
Looking into the room from the hallway
In the window area is a little chest of drawers I upcycled with chalk paints and wrapping paper, thrift is my name!
There is room for a little seating area as well.
My daughter is over the moon with the room. What do you think?!
Emma Kayne 