before and after a guided tour…

Remember Dolly and Ted – they have had their baths and are now clean and presentable and ready to invite you to have a peep around their new home…

This room was our younger daughter’s bedroom, part of the extension we had built above the garage in 1997, and pine was fashionable back then together with red check fabric and stencilled walls.   So this is a guided tour of the before and after.

I made the curtains from a duvet cover to get the look she wanted – notice how they had faded over time.  After she left home it became a bit of a dumping ground and a handy place to dry the washing.

We even had a settee in here for a while waiting to transport it up to the cottage.   I can’t believe it got this messy – I took this picture after Christmas one year – I obviously didn’t know where to put all the new presents!

                       Before we started we had a good clear out and now…

…it is light and bright – the walls are a soft grey called Amonite by Farrow and Ball and the woodwork All White Eggshell.

I decided not to put curtains back as I love the simplicity of the window and chose a plain white roller blind.  Little L, my granddaughter, will eventually be using this room so I wanted it to be inviting for a little girl to sleep in so there are a few toys about…

The new fitted wardrobes are from the PAX range at IKEA they are the 30cm deep ones with plain white shaker style doors and we added the white-painted wooden handles which OH lovingly made!

There is enough hanging space and drawer room for a few clothes when little L comes to stay

and the double side of the wardrobe is my new linen cupboard…

and I have designated one of the drawers for my fabrics and sewing projects…

The corner had an overburdened bookcase and became another dumping ground…

but has been pared down considerably to make this reading corner with a new smaller, lower bookcase and a couple of narrow picture shelves that display some of the most cherished books…

Remember the pine ‘samba’ style staircase that some bloggers told me they rather liked…

– it leads to the mezzanine sleeping platform above…

well yes we did paint it and no I don’t regret it…

The carpet is a little too creamy now but we have laid it back down until we finish the other rooms after which we will buy all the same colour throughout the house.

Upstairs on the mezzanine –  the Lloyd loom bedside cabinet belonged to my mum-in-law, a definite keeper and so the colours had to work around this.

We decided not to paint the pine bed for the time being as you cannot really see the pine colour until up close.  OH made this bed in our first house in 1979 so it does not owe us anything only a new mattress which we will try to find in the sales.

The quilt cover is from Next it ties in the blue of the cabinet and the blue snuggly throw I found in IKEA for only £4.

I am pleased with the way this room has turned out the soft grey has proved to be better than paining the room all white and in some lights actually can look white.  It may not be to everyone’s taste but I love the clean spacious look – it is not too minimalist but I have been careful not to overfill the room.

So two rooms finished now, we finished the family bathroom a while ago, and only four more rooms to go upstairs.

Next on the list is the middle bedroom once the residence of my older daughter.  This will become our main guest room and will be mainly used by my mum when she comes down to stay.  At the moment we have a single bed in there but will change this for a double.  There is a considerable amount of decluttering to do in here too but having already started to rid ourselves of any excess I am quite enjoying all the new space.

Have a good weekend x