It's now nearly done, and what we thought would be a pretty easy little makeover, turned into a standard Big Fella event (basically bigger than Ben Hur).
The majority of the furniture arrived earlier in the week, and the rest will be here on Sunday. So I thought I'd give you a little preview of the room before it's actually complete and fitted out!
This is the room as it was. An office-in-the-making, with a whole bunch of stuff that hadn't found homes after the move. We sold the desk, chair and the drawers (you can't really see them, but they're in the corner), and sorted and packed up the rest of the stuff (for now).
You can't really see in this photo, but there are those thin, aluminium blinds on the window.
Not for long!
Ta da!!! Empty room!
I did a fair bit of internet research and decided that I wanted a kind of simple, modern French style in the room, probably with pale steel blue walls, curtains, and a few stylish but simple touches to the room.
I had wall colours, linen and decor pretty much mapped out, and it was all based on a white bed (the room is small so I wanted to make it feel bigger with lighter furniture). Maybe something like this:
But when we bought furniture for the Little Big Fella's room a few years ago, we didn't see the furniture in person and we greatly regretted it. So picked out a free Saturday and drove to the big town 2 hours away and looked at furniture.
It became clear, very quickly, that the Big Fella couldn't stand the furniture I'd been thinking of. We went to several stores and every time I went anywhere near something white, he'd say how poorly it was made and write it off straight away.
Okay. Where to from here????
In the first store we went to, we saw this bedroom setting, which the Big Fella loved and I didn't mind:
After driving around and looking at LOTS of bedroom settings, we ended up at the end of the day back at this store. It was the ONLY setting we'd seen all day that we both like, so we placed the order.
On the way home we were talking and the Big Fella asked if I was happy with our choice. I couldn't honestly say yes, because everything I'd planned had to be changed. The paint colours, the linen, the window furnishings, the lighting... everything!
I had to go back to the drawing board.
I was looking through a magazine and came across this:
The picture rail caught my attention, possibly because we have similar paneling (but only part way up the wall) in the dining/lounge areas. I showed it to the Big Fella, who pointed out that the ceiling is painted the same colour as the majority of the wall, which he quite liked.
We'd been looking at colours in a couple of paint brochures, and were leaning toward those in the "stone" ranges. We decided to go to the local hardware store and choose the paint and get started.
They didn't stock the paint range that we were looking at, and the colours they did stock didn't match. So we chose the closes thing:
But before we could paint, we needed to make some changes.
The ugly blue light shade HAD to go, as did the aluminium blinds.
We'd originally talked about putting in pendant lamps as bedside lighting, but the small roof cavity and awkward ducting changed our minds. Instead, we ended up putting 4 LED downlights in the room.
The Little Big Fella helped his Dad get everything ready for the electrician.
We did a couple of other little things (to be revealed) and then the painting could begin!
The photo doesn't show the picture rail and the contrast with the main wall colour, but once it dried, it looked fantastic!
The Big Fella was on a bit of a high that afternoon (possibly an effect of the paint in a small room!!!) and said he wanted to rip up the ugly, brown carpet before the furniture arrived.
I was somewhat hesitant.
Pulling up the carpet hadn't been part of the plan (it was on the list for the future but would take a bit more money than we wanted to spend at this stage). I asked if he was willing to put in all that extra effort, and place himself under extra pressure at this point in time.
He was eager to do it.
Bye bye, ugly, brown carpet!
Hello beautiful, already polished (but obviously not in perfect condition) hardwood floors!!!!!
What an awesome surprise!!!! I messaged my friend, J, who'd had a similar experience about 10 years ago and she celebrated the discovery with us.
So, now for the sneak peek!
Full reveal to come!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment