Our new bedroom... previously the studio

Soooo, our wooden floors are done downstairs (B&Q solid oak floor); our wardrobe is up (IKEA Pax); the wall is papered and the curtains are hung (both Laura Ashley Heligan). Happy days!

Getting the floor done was actually more of an upheaval that we had anticpated. I don't think you realise how much 'stuff' you've accumulated, until you have to move it from one room to another! We basically had to clear everything from under two double beds (which included boxes and boxes of the boy's old singles)as well as the contents of the wardrobe and drawers etc etc. And because we were switching the studio and bedroom around (the new studio/old bedroom being the only room that wasn't getting the wooden floor treatment) we ended up piling all the studio stuff into the back bedroom (see pics on previous post) before moving it in order to enable us to get to the bed etc so we could move that into the new bedroom. Lots of heavy lifting.

Anyway, it's done now - aside from touching up the walls in a few places and re-painting our woodwork (which inexplicably always seems to go yellow even though we paint with good quality white gloss). I love our new bedroom (petite though it is), and I also LOVE having decent wardrobe space for the first time ever. We've kept our old wardrobe and put it in the small bedroom, so guests will have somewhere to hang their things too. Yay.

Hope you like!







Pictures of the new studio (complete with my late Dad's shabby old oak desk that I've always loved, and that we collected from home last weekend) will follow!

A bedroom reorganisation

Sooooooo, it struck me yesterday, whilst at work and taking a mini break from hammering the phones and nagging journos, that maybe the solution to the big bedroom dilemma (I'm forever whittering on about hating the decor but not knowing what to do) was to switch our rooms around. My slightly mad proposal is to move the boy's music studio into the large bedroom, and move the guest bed and our clothes into what is currently the studio (the medium sized room in our three bed pad).

The benefits are:
it's at the front of the house so get more sun than the back;
it's cosier and would suit some fantastic wallpaper I've seen (Osborne & Little Foxglove!);
we could fit a double bed, a double or quadruple wardrobe and maybe even a little mini dressing table area;
the boy would feel so guilty about snagging the biggest room that he has agreed another wardrobe could remain in the new studio space;
the boy would have space for music stuff and another desk for freelance design and marketing work (the perfect live/work solution).

The wallpaper I like -


Anyway - the change won't happen before Chritmas I wouldn't have thought - when we can take some time off and switch things around. I also think if we're doing that we might as well get wooden floors downstairs (maybe in January sales...) Pictures and more dull musings on this issue to follow, I'm sure! ;-)

To do list, post 2

Small bedroom

I do love this room, especially since the introduction of the ‘LOVE’ pillow cases, but we could do with a few more things.



*curtains - at the moment we have the cheap, rough cotton curtains we got when we moved in, as a quick solution to privacy. I would like something much prettier, and floatier. No inspiration pics yet, but I will look for some soon.

*vintage mirror on a chain - I think this would add interest to the wall opposite the bed, the one that also contains our bird pictures. It would also reflect the lovely bird wallpaper. I love this collection of mirrors.



And here is our little bird gallery.



*a bedside lamp - to sit atop our little 40p-spray-painted-blue bedside table. Isn't this vintage number cute? (via flikr)



And here's the table it would sit on.

My 'to do' list, post 1

Today I’ve decided to share my ‘to do’ list. Or part of it at least, otherwise I think the post might become far too long.

I’ve always been a list-maker, so the little moleskin notebook that I carry around in my handbag is always full of lists of some description – shopping lists, present lists, card lists and, the biggest list of all, ‘things to do to the house’. The list is broken down by room, and some of the tasks seem rather big for the un-DIY couple that we are, and so I think that that they are, sadly, destined to stay on the list for quite some time. However, I’m going to try and ensure that’s not the case. At the moment the list is something like this –

Large bedroom
I’m not sure if you remember, that although this should really be the ‘master bedroom’ in our three bed maisonette, we prefer to sleep in our tiny little room, and so this room is a guest room, and our ‘dressing room’.

*Buy a new wardrobe (this is the most important thing in the world…just look how terrible the situation is at the moment. I considered getting something built in, but I think that the credit-crunch-savvy option is a trip to IKEA for a PAX wardrobe. You can get ones in an l-shape, so hopefully we’ll be able to hugely increase our storage. I’d also like to get an old fashioned, tall, wooden chest of drawers – to counteract the modernity of the wardrobe)

I'm embarrassed by this - look how awful it is...


I like the look of this light, airy clothes storage solution (via Desire to Inspire)


Realistically, I think this is what I'm aiming for (although slightly smaller, and I think with glossy white doors)


*Sand bedroom wall – and repaint sanded area (before we got a glass shower screen in our bathroom we had a bit of an issue with leaking water, and it managed to get onto our adjoining bedroom wall and has bubbled the paintwork. This task just requires borrowing / buying / hiring a sander, and will probably only take 5 minutes)

*Repaint (as I’ve said before I’m not happy with this room, and think that unfortunately it might be the white paintwork in the East facing lower-ground floor room that is the problem. Am still undecided as to what colour to paint.)

Here are three rooms that I love (via Ideal Homes magazine and Desire to Inspire)




*Shorten curtains (I love that they sweep the floor, but still need a good few inches taking off them. This is, I think, a job for my Mum next time she comes to visit)

Bedroom help needed

Have you ever had one of those rooms that just doesn't seem to look right? Individually things look ok, but all together it doesn't look welcoming or cohesive or cosy or stylish... Our large bedroom is one such room. I call it the large bedroom, rather than the master bedroom, because we don't actually sleep in it. We much prefer our cute, small room (with the lovely bird wallpaper), so this room is actually our guest room. It's also where we keep our clothes, so I suppose that for all intents and purposes really it's a dressing room. Although if there has ever been a dressing room with worse storage then I'd like to hear about it. I must get the camera out and take more shots, but imagine this - one double ikea leksvik wardrobe and one ikea chest of drawers. In total. For the two of us... I have lots of my dresses actually hung on the side of the wardrboe, and the boy's work clothes spend most of their time in the ironing basket, which frees up a bit more space, but still, it's far from ideal.

Anyway, there are a few pictures below...I'll take more tomorrow, with a view of the whole room, and the window and curtains etc. I realise I took these trying to make the place look as nice as possible, rather than the reverse!

The problem, I think, is the white paint. I love white, and it seems to work well in the rest of the house, but maybe it's just too harsh in this room. I'm wondering whether a pale grey might look nice, to coordinate with the Laura Ashley Erin wallpaper (in charcoal). Also, maybe the pictures aren't quite right... Are the frames too matchy matchy?

The look I'd really like to go for is a little bit vintage, or a bit quirky. It's a bit too late (and way past my bedtime) to be very articulate about this, but what I don't really like is the sparse hotel look.

Anyway, any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated! (Although please don't tell me to paint the furniture!)

thanks x