decorating | A Crafty Chai

Tag: decorating

17
May
2016

Prints for the bedroom

So we’ve almost finished redecorating the bedroom. It’s very nearly done, just a few little bits and pieces to add. Thank god. It feels like we’ve been doing it for ever, which is almost true and why we put it off for so long. In its previous incarnation as a hideous space, we only had one picture on the wall and it doesn’t really go with the new decor. (Plus Phil isn’t keen, so it’ll have to go in my room!) We need some prints on the wall. While this terrifies me, as it’ll mean putting holes in my beautiful newly plastered walls, they are pretty bare. I am like a magpie when it comes to pictures, without really thinking of the space they’re going into or the colours or just get anything remotely coastal so thought I should do a bit of research beforehand. Plus it was a good distraction from the hideousness that is Eurovision *rolls eyes*. All the prints can be found on Not on the High Street (love that site) and are a bit of a mixture.

Prints for the home

1. Seaside Ahoy! 2. White Elephant 3. Fox print
4. Naps are always a good idea 5. Bees of Britain 6. Blame it on the weatherman
7. Dog print 8. Hip Hip Hooray 9. Wonderful whales of the world

[Images courtesy of respective sources]

I could buy all of these and more! They aren’t all blue and they aren’t all to do with coast, which is progress for me! I love the dog print, obviously, but think the whale and bee prints are also gorgeous. Even if we go with other prints for the bedroom, I would definitely like one or two (or all of them. Too much?!) for my home office.

07
Feb
2016

Bedroom Inspiration – Scandi Style

categories: Home & Garden

This month is our six year anniversary of living in our house. After moving a ridiculous number of times in a short space of time, I worried that we’d never be in one place for too long. My aim was five years, as that’s the amount of time you need to be somewhere so you only have to give one address on any kind of forms. I thought I would be looking to move after this time, but I can’t really be bothered with all that yet. So we’re looking to carry on redecorating some more of the house this year.

We’re going to start with the bedroom, as it was the first room we decorated. We had a few days to do it before our things got moved in and it is hideous. This is no exaggeration. Take a look.

Decorating disaster Red wall in a bedroom See, even Poppy can’t look at it. Do not ask me why we went for a feature wall and a red feature wall at that. It’s bloomin’ awful and took about four coats of paint to achieve. The ‘cream’ is painted straight onto the wood chip *shudders* wall paper that was there when we moved in. Both Phil and I have removed wood chip before so we both knew what a hideous job it would be and when we were moving in, we didn’t have time to do it then. Plus, it’s probably covering some awful walls. Not only that but the built in wardrobes are really badly built and they don’t even close properly. All in all it is a very uninspiring room. For years, I have poured over pins of beautiful, relaxing, opulent and luxurious bedrooms on Pinterest, so much so, I dedicated a board to them. Here are a few of my current favourites:

Style Files white bedroom

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Liz Marie Blog

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Decoholic

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Chocolate and creamz

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[Images via their respective sources]

Judging by my Pinterest account, I seem to be drawn to plain walls, a mega comfy bed (not like the one we’ve got now) and a simple, clean room. We’ve got the simple room down to a T, but it’s the rest of it that needs a lot of attention. So here’s the plan:

Strip the hideous wallpaper.
Get in a plasterer to sort out the walls, including plastering over the red wall.
Buy an awesome floor to ceiling wardrobe, with room for everything we need, including drawers and someway of storing all my make up and jewelry. I don’t want any other furniture in the bedroom, other than the wardrobes, bed and bed side tables.
Paint the walls a light plain colour.
Finally get a full length mirror.
Get rid of the curtains and sort out some awesome blinds instead (need to be black out in order to stop Poppy rising at the crack of dawn in the summer)
New lampshade
New bed (in time)
Make it light, bright and lush with no freakin’ hideous red feature wall.

Hopefully, we’ll be making a start on this soon, with the bulk of the work taking place over the Easter holidays. I can’t wait, as this room has been annoying me since the time I tried to move my clothes into the wardrobe and found that the wardrobe was too small for my hangers. I’ve been hating it ever since. I’ll let you know how we get on and if we can be rid of that red wall!

26
Nov
2013

#BEDN ~ Home Sweet Home

categories: Blog Everyday in November, Home & Garden

It’s almost time for our four year anniversary in our little home and boy have we done a lot of work to it! Here’s what we’ve done so far:

Damp course
Replastered some walls (seriously, our house is where artex comes to die!)
Replaced 3 windows
Decorated 5 rooms & the hallway
Sanded & painted 1 floor
Carpeted 1 room and the stairs
Repaired the roof once
Installed a wood burning stove
Given the garden a complete overhaul

Wow. It doesn’t sound like much when you put it like that, but there has been plenty of blood, sweat, tears & swears shed over this place! And we’re not even finished *sigh*

One room that is finished is my study.

Before

After

Before

After

I’d still like to change the curtains as we bought those for the first house we lived in together and I hate them now. I’m thinking of getting a blind so light isn’t restricted at the sides of the window. That would be the only change I’d make in my study now.

Here are a few things we’ve got left to do:

Replace 2 windows
Redecorate our bedroom (We did this room first when we moved in. We made some bad decorative choices!)
Improve storage in the spare room
Plant up the garden
Add curtains to the new window/back window

And if we had all the money, extend the back of the house, move the bathroom and add a loft room. Or move. If we had all the money, we’d move to where we’d never have lift a paintbrush ever again!

08
Nov
2013

Creating a Picture Gallery in your Home

categories: Home & Garden

It’s not until you look in a photo album that you realise how many great pictures you have that you don’t display. I found some old family ones and had a few prints and things lying around and decided to create a picture gallery in my study. I bought frames from a charity shop, as they were in great condition and way cheaper than brand new ones. When you’re buying a lot, it’s much cheaper to by second hand ones. For me, I wanted old frames that had a bit of a ‘used’ look because that’s what suits the style of my study. My OH did all the hammering – he’s got a better eye for this kind of thing, as I’m a bit challenged when it comes to spatial awareness!

I had a definite space that I wanted to put the pictures in, as well as a vague idea of how to display them, but when push came to shove it wasn’t going to work and we had to go back to the drawing board. This is the design we came up, as I want to be able to add a few other pictures in the future. We decided to keep the embroidery hoops separate and put them on the same wall as the sampler as I’ve got a few other hoops that are a work in progress and will join them at some point.

I’m pretty pleased with it. It’s nice adding some personal touches to the room with these pictures. And yes, that’s a very young me wearing a burgundy dress. Cute eh?!