Dining Room Update

Ok so I have lived in this house for 5 years and have never been able to decide what to do with the dining room. It always looks dark, cluttered and uninviting. 

Then a fortnight ago I came across this awesome wallpaper, I absolutely loved it.

I found it on Ebay, thought perfect I'll put the paper in the recess next to the chimney breast, paint the chimney breast and the other 3 walls. It'll look fab. I ordered two rolls, and had £5 off voucher for ebay so cost £18. Perfect. I thought I have some white paint in the shed so I'll get started whilst I wait for delivery.

Pulled the wallpaper that was on the chimney breast off ready to paint and was left with this:

1 very untidy, needs a replaster chimney breast. Definitely not a quick paint with white emulsion job. I don't have the skills or the money to fix this, especially as this is a rented home and I plan on moving in a couple of years as I aim to buy my own home. (long term plan, details coming soon!)

This means a change of plan- I'll just wallpaper across all of the area you can see in the picture above.

I forgot to take before pictures of this room, that's how much I disliked it! In the alcove on the left of this picture is where I had my freezer (kitchen is too tiny to fit a fridge/freezer in it. The alcove on the right is where I put my dining table and 6 chairs. The opposite corner to where the freezer is, so behind me and to the left where I stood to take this picture is where I had the fridge/ freezer, then the opposite corner to the table, so on my right and behind me when I took this picture is the bookcase and my desk. There never seemed to be enough room and it was not a comfortable space to use. So the whole room ended up a dumping ground.

Whilst I was painting I came up with a cunning plan to fix this. 

All the walls that were not papered were painted white to allow for the room to appear brighter, the wallpaper has potential to make it look dark so I wanted to balance this out.

This si the finished room:

I absolutely love it. I have spent all my time in here/ the garden since I finished it. I smile everytime I walk in. I love how I have laid the space out and it feels less cluttered. I haven't taken any of our stuff out, it's just better organised.

It's not the easiest room to photograph, but hopefully that gives you an idea of how much better it looks.

I did have to buy a third roll of wallpaper, as I was one drop short after having to paper the chimney breast as well as the alcoves.

Total costs:

Wallpaper- 3 rolls= £30

Gloss for woodwork- tin £8- I used half so £4

White emulsion- I used half a of a huge tub which cost £12 so £6

Wallpaper paste £1.

I have used all of our own furniture and didn't buy anything new. I have the light fitting from a previous room decorating.

Total cost for project: £41.00

I'm very happy with that as it has given us a fantastic looking room that we are all now using properly.

Home improvements

I have finally finished my bedroom;

I love it! It's much calmer and peaceful. I need to find this for the rest of the house now or I might just spend my days  in bed! LOL

I do want to get new accessories, I would like a lampshade as I don't have one. Also a bedside lamp as I knocked mine over whilst decorating and have broken it. It's glass so is now quite dangerous. I have spotted a lampshade I like and it is currently on sale for £7.99 so I shall be going back in the week once I have been paid I just need to find a lamp ion the colour I want (purple). I also would like to finish my new purple crochet blanket and eventually I would like a different duvet set with purple tones in it. The duvet is not essential though as there is nothing wrong with the couple of sets I have so will wait until I find a bargain somewhere.

This project has cost in total

£20 for the grey paint

£10 for white paint

£13 for gloss

£17 for floor paint

So a total of £60. However I still have half a tin of white gloss which will be used elsewhere in the house and there is a little white emulsion in the tin and 1/3 of  the floor paint left. All will be used up in future projects. 

My new bedroom

I have been very quite the last couple of days as I have been busy decorating my bedroom.

Here is a picture of how it looked before;

Here is the finished room;

ignore the drawers, they don't go there!

The chest of drawers in it's rightful place;

 

I don't have a wardrobe yet- mine collapsed after being fixed several times. So in the next couple of weeks that will be rectified and the room won't look quite so spacious.

 

To do this room makeover I have painted walls and ceiling with white emulsion, cleaned every surface, including shampooing the carpet;

 

That is the dirty water that has come out of the carpet- gross it was only done a couple of months back as well.

I made the curtains out of material I was given a long time ago and I have used the old curtains as liners to make them thicker so should provide less light in the summer months when I don't want to get up at 4 am thank you Mr Sunshine! and help retain the heat in the winter as this is one of the coldest rooms in the house.

pinning the curtains ready for  sewing.

This is the bit I hate, spacing the rings at the perfect gaps to make the eyelets.

This makeover was done on a teensy budget- £12 for the paint and the new duvet set cost me £5 in the sales. Everything else I had in the house already. So a total of £17 to makeover my bedroom. I love it and can't wait to go to bed now!

And it's complete

Today I finished decorating the upstairs bathroom. I don't know why I have put it off for so long it has taken me less than 24 hours to complete it.



This is the only picture I could find of the bathroom to give you a bit of a before picture. The cabinet came off the wall (it broke) about a month ago. The rest was as it was when we moved in.
This is it now

It's not an easy room to photograph the colours aren't showing up quite right. But here it is.

 

Total cost for this project £0.00!!

Yes you did read that correctly. See the paint was free, it was the ends of paints from previous rooms. The curtain is fabric leftover from a previous project. Everything else was already in the room. I could do with a new shower curtain but the one we have works perfectly well so when I next go shopping if I see a reasonably priced one I like I will get it, but until then bathroom made over and no money spent- RESULT!