[HOW TO] Create a bedroom you’ll love

I hate decorating. Painting is so messy and the prep alone is such a pain. But I do love the end results.

We just repainted our bedroom. Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of the tired yellowing peachy walls – complete with holes! But, believe me, it was not pretty – and certainly not somewhere we wanted to spend any time.

Now, though, it is a haven to retreat to.

The decoration process started, as most processes do these days, with a Pinterest board! I love the whole simplistic minimalistic Scandi decor of white washed walls and white washed bare floorboards.

Working with what we had (dark red carpets which we can’t afford to change right now), we set about doing everything we could to make it as Scandi as possible.

We went for cream walls. We did white walls in an old house and they looked quite cold and uninviting in the winter, so we went for a slightly off white shade – Dulux’s Natural Calico.

I’ve changed our bed linen too – for all white – white pillow cases, white duvet covers, white sheets – it looks cleaner and kind of hotel-esque.

The room is quite small (with a fair amount of furniture) so we wanted to keep the wall decoration as simple as possible. One of the things I kept seeing on Pinterest, was a picture rail above the bed. With an impending trip to Ikea, I grabbed one and we added it to the wall.

We already knew we wanted to use the letters that my sister made for us for our wedding in the bedroom and the rail was a great way to display these. I didn’t want to add too many different colours to the display as we were trying to ensure everything else was light and simple, so I picked out the yellow and blue and used a couple of photos from our wedding and a holiday snap of a blue Fiat 500!

For the rest, I’m trying really hard not to clutter up my bedside table too much!

Is your bedroom a place to hide out in or a place you’d rather hide from?

[HOW TO] Create The Perfect Home Spa

Earlier this week I told you about the challenge set by bathroom company C.P. Hart to create a Pinterest board of my ideal home spa. The Pinboard is now filled with a whole host of inspiration and so today I thought I would share with you my tips for creating the perfect place to relax: your own home spa.

Creating a tranquil retreat in your home doesn’t need to cost the earth and certainly doesn’t have to mean a complete overhaul of your current bathroom. Instead, here are a few quick and easy – and budget friendly – tips for creating your perfect home spa:

[INSPIRATION] C.P. Hart Blogger Challenge: Home Spa

Earlier in the summer you might remember that I took part in the Cox and Kings Holiday Wardrobe Blogger Challenge which I went on to win, so when I was contacted about the C.P. Hart – one of the UK’s leading of suppliers contemporary bathrooms – Blogger Challenge to create a Pinterest board of my ideal spa at home, I could hardly refuse!

When we bought our house last Spring, the one room we completely re-did was our bathroom. I have always dreamed of having a large family bathroom where I can kick back after a long week at work, relax in a bubble bath, with a large glass of wine in hand and candles on every available surface. Well, we now have a large bathroom, with a lovely slate flag floor and olive green tiles covering two walls. Unfortunately the budget didn’t quite stretch to a freestanding bath but it is definitely one of my favourite retreats, instead we are happy to have incorporated a luxury shower enclosure:

[BARGAIN OF THE DAY] DIY Budget Wall Art

Did I mention how the boyfriend and I bought a house recently? Oh, ok, I did. Well I’ve probably also mentioned, then, that we are still in the process of slowly doing it up and decorating and furnishing it. This past weekend we hunted out a vintage map of New York that my dad had given me a few years ago, picked out one of the Ikea frames we’d bought, put the two together and got a rather fabulous piece for the previously empty chimneybreast wall in our living room:

What do you think of our new artwork?

For further ideas on what to do with vintage/unwanted maps, check out these ideas over at Miss Thrifty.

[HOUSE TO HOME] Finishing Touches from Next

Now that much of the major redecoration and works have been done to our home, we can get about adding finishing touches to it, like this heart – a gift from my mother (via Next):

It is now hanging on the wall in our hallway by the kichen and adds a little interest to a previously forgotten corner. I’m kind of in love with it, so I decided to spend a little time seeing what else the Next Home Store had to offer. I’m currently in the process of finding pieces to decorate the area above and around my dressing table, which at the moment looks a little bare:

[HOUSE TO HOME] Finishing Touches

1. Retro cushions; 2. Summer brights lime tablewear; 3. Solid oak dining table; 4. Mini sewing machine; 5. Table lamp; 6. Outdoor bistro set; 7. Solid oak bench; 8. Retro enamel biscuit jar.

When we bought our new home we had grand ideas about how we would decorate it but as the bills piled up we realised that we would have to be sensible about furnishing and finishing the different rooms. I have scoured the high street for unique pieces that will fit into what we have done. In our kitchen, we have yet to decorate, but we have already decided upon a green colour scheme and so I have been collecting green crockery and storage containers that will fit in once we have completed the painting.

In other parts of the house we have sourced cheaper pieces from Ikea and complemented them with more expensive pieces that, we hope, will last for a long time.

Where do you shop for interesting but budget friendly finishing touches for your home?

[HOW TO] Dress Your Dining Table

Yesterday I showed you our new dining table and the dining room we’ve been in the process of decorating and furnishing for the past few months. Since buying the dining table we’ve been religious about using it, at breakfast and at dinner. It is a wonderful experience, to sit together each morning and discuss our plans for the day and then come together again in the evening to mull over how those plans turned out. I have become almost obsessed with how my table looks – and have, thus, created my top five tips for dressing your dining table:

[HOUSE TO HOME] Dining Room

Since buying our new house and having spent a few months working on making it a home, I have been promising photos of the work and how we have created a space which is ours. The first room to show you is, in fact, one of the last we have finished. We moved into the house in April, having spent the previous month having builders in to completely re-do our bathroom. We also spent much of March stripping paper from the walls in the living and dining room, before having them re-skimmed with plaster. You can see much of the work in progress in these photos: