My bedroom: the pretty version

It’s finished.

After nearly two weeks of living amongst wet paint, newspaper and clothes strewn across every spare inch of floor space, my bedroom makeover is now complete.

This is a big milestone. I’ve written before about the fact we’re saving towards a deposit for a mortgage. And with many banks currently requesting 25% – with the fees on top of that – in the area we currently live in we’d be lucky to buy somewhere with less than £50,000 in the bank. Unsurprisingly, we don’t have that kind of change lying around.

So we are saving. Saving, saving, saving. I work around 70 hours a week and we aim to put aside much of what I earn. We try not to make too many frivolous purchases, although white wine and chocolate buttons are budgeted for. But stuff like brand spanking new furniture is a rarity.

This is why I did a little jump for joy when Feather and Black contacted me about taking part in a challenge to makeover my bedroom. With my early starts for work (my alarm clock goes off at 3.30am), I tend to be in bed by 10pm many evenings. But this is no fun if the room I’m sleeping in is a tip, full of 90s furniture and dusty photographs.

We’ve been meaning to revamp our room for a while. Not owning the bricks and mortar meant painting the walls wasn’t an option, but doing up the furniture and spruicing up the place with some pretty accessories was a possibility.

Here’s the before version. Don’t judge me.

I would love to invest in one of those beautiful wooden beds, but alas that is an expense I can’t justify at the moment. So we’re making do with the chrome one I’ve had since I was 16. Classy.

The old room also featured some rather tasty 90s furniture….

But after doing up said 90s furniture and purchasing some rather lovely accessories for the room I was left with something altogether different.

Here’s the “after” version…

Decluttered and free of that hideous dated pine. My bedroom furniture no longer leaves me cold.

I love it.

Here are the Linda Barker-esque facts:

The rug is from John Lewis, costing £55. It was bought to go with the beautiful silk throw I already owned, a relic from my time working in India a few years ago. It also matches the wall hanging I have kept ever since a trip to Sri Lanka, but which has been hidden behind my wedding dress since last August.

As you can tell from the bed, I’m rather partial to a cushion too.

The red spotty one cost £39, from Melin Tregwynt, a tip picked up from my friend Heather, the interiors goddess who blogs at Growing Spaces. The other cushions were bought on a trolley dash to Dunelm Mill and cost £19.99 (for the felt one with the yellow flower), £7.99, £5.99 and £4.99. Bargains.

The 90s pine was rubbed down, painted and decoupaged and is accessorised with a Dunelm Mill jug (£5.99) with a selection of fabric flowers. The (self-proclaimed) Northern Love Machine banned real flowers on account of his hayfever.

And to finish the whole look off, this stunning upholstered Richmond Blanket Box, from Feather and Black sits pride of place at the end of our (old) bed.

It now houses our sheets and my wedding dress, meaning I no longer have to battle with a ziplock bag every time the bedding needs changing.

For the first time in my adult life, I now have a room that I love. A room that I feel at home in. It feels like ours, rather than a temporary, in-between space until we have our “proper” house, whenever that may be.

You can check out the rooms of the other four bloggers who also took part in the bedroom revamp challenge on the Feather and Black Facebook page. (It’s a competition, so if you see my picture and you prefer it to the others, give it a “like” and I may be able to invest in a new bed afterall.)

Linda Barker, eat your heart out.

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Disclosure: I was given a £150 budget to make over the room, along with the beautiful Richmond Blanket Box, to help me with this challenge.