Another Busy Day

The sun was out again today (yay!) so I managed to have another productive day like yesterday (double yay!). I'm trying to start preparing things ready for decorating the bedroom, as mentioned in a previous post I'm trying to do this cheaply as I have a somewhat limited budget, a.k.a. I'm thoroughly skint! I picked up a few bits recently with the plan that I'd do them up so taking advantage of the good weather, I popped round to my Grandparent's home to make a start.

I bought this chest of drawers last weekend for only £15 from Ashgate Hospice, which is an absolute bargain but they were in a bit of a state. Not sure if you can really tell on this picture but it had been painted with really thick gloss paint which had gone all gloopy and there were all lumps of dried paint over it and it was chipped in places, poor thing certainly needed some love.

I hadn't realised how much paint was actually on it, the layers were so think that it took hours of me and my Grandad trying to chisel, sand and even blow torch it off! It took a lot longer than I thought it would but we got there in the end. Below is it stripped but I still need to paint it, hopefully I'll have it done by next week. 

My boyfriend also recently bought me this small set of drawers for our bedroom. I think he may have just got them for me as an incentive to put away my jewellery for once, as it's usually scattered all over our room (I'm a bit of a messy bugger) but I don't mind as I love them. I wasn't keen on the the burgundy colour though. 

I only had time to do one coat of paint to the outside but already I prefer it a lighter colour. Sorry that the photo I took below isn't great, I took it inside my Grandad's garage and it doesn't really do the colour of the paint justice, it really is quite lovely though, Imperial Cream part of Crown's Period Colours range. I'm planning on painting the chest of drawers the same colour so will take photos of both when completed, but in day light next time.

As dark as it is I do love my Grandad's garage, I think that this could be a clue as to my hoarding nature, he keeps absolutely everything just in case it might ever be useful. To some people it would be their worst nightmare but I would love a garage like this one day, I could quite happily potter about in there.

There's also a few quirky details in my Nanan's and Grandad's garden that particularly make me smile. Couldn't resist sharing them. 

These are tulips by the way :)

 

Oh and my Nan's and Grandad's amaryllis was looking rather splendid today too.

Right I'm off to watch Friday's episode of Monty Don's French Garden's.

Cheerio

Bedroom Inspiration

Although we moved into our cottage well over a year ago, it still looks like we've just moved in. We still have boxes full of things we want to sell or just simply don't have space for piled up in each room. On top of that all of the rooms look tired and tatty, it didn't help matters that when we got our cat Bootsy he was just a kitten and decided that it would be great fun to scratch and tear at our wallpaper. Basically the house looks nothing like how I want it to and although it's only rented we're lucky that our Landlord is very laid back so we're planning on doing up the house, together with the garden, throughout this year. 

The first room we'll be attempting to tackle is our bedroom. We intended to decorate it last year but as we started to remove the wallpaper we found that the walls were a real mess, so we knew it was going to be a bigger job than we originally imagined. It was close to Christmas so we thought it best to wait until this year so have been left with a bedroom with wallpaper half taken off and mould all up the walls, making it quite a depressing space and not at all relaxing. We'll be decorating soon but in the meantime I have been researching how I'd like the room to look. Whilst perusing the internet I found inspiration at Baixa House Apartments in Lisbon, I love the simplicity of each of the rooms, a complete opposite to my cluttered bedroom, here's a sample of them below.

Don't ask me why but these photos make me giddy with excitement, I especially love the mismatched furniture and lighting, something which we will have to do in our bedroom out of necessity, mainly due to lack of funds. I just hope our bedroom looks half as nice when finished.