Our bedroom is complete! Check out the beautiful photographs

After weeks of work and weeks of blogging about the work, i'm really pleased that our bedroom is now complete. There are a few minor items to snag but we are now complete and have spent our first night sleeping in the new room. 

I guess now we might have a weekend off the renovations before starting the next room!

Would love to know your thoughts on the new bedroom.

For most of the items found in the bedroom these can be bought in these stores, the birdcage tea light holder and the sheep skin rug where originally ours but everything else was bought especially for this room makeover and renovation.

• Wall lights - Eglo Almera from Amazon 
• Duvet cover and Pillows from Dunelm Mill - Dorma Natural Paisley
• Curtains - Lorenza Slate from Dunelm Mill
• Cushions - Lorenza slate from Dunelm Mill
• Dressing table stool - Puffa grey footstool from Atlantic Shopping
• Dressing table vinyl - Sheffield grey oak from the vinyl warehouse 
• Carpet - Bergerac mocha carpet from Carpet right
• Mirror - Bought in store at Matalan
• Door - Dordogne oak from Howdens
• Lamp Shade from Habitat - Kura Paper Pendant Shade
• Door handle from E-bay
• Wardrobe doors in high gloss cream from Homestyle
• Wardrobe door handles from E-bay
• Wardrobe wallpaper Home of Colour Damask Stripe Wallpaper from Homebase

vinyl wrapping a dressing table and our new stool

Our bedroom has been our main project for the last few months from stripping it back to bare walls to new plaster board and plastering, but the biggest challenge was the decorating. We couldn't decide on wall colours to match the wardrobe doors and from then in it was impossible to invisage how the room would come together.

But little step by little step the room has taken shape and grown in character and has now become a beautiful room even if the room is nothing at all what either of us had in mind when we started the project.

The next job on the list was to vinyl wrap the dressing table and buy a stool. This was proving just as impossible as choosing the paint colour for the walls. After sending off for several different vinyl samples we decided on a grey oak effect vinyl to match the recently purchased grey curtains and cushions with a grey material covered dressing table stool from Atlantic Shopping's online store.

The dressing table looks beautiful and again nothing at all what I had in mind for the bedroom but on completion it looks perfect. Maybe it's best to go into house renovations with absolutely no idea what you want or what theme will suit the room as when it all comes together you get a nice surprise.

Next to fit some handles to the dressing table drawers and that's enough job complete and ticked off the list.

It never rains but it pours!

This week we saw the weather turn a bit colder, the winds pick up and the rain start pouring. Our house has been one massive project for the last two years and although we took the house on as a project as quick as we are getting some parts finished other parts are needing new attention. 

On Friday night we saw quite a lot of rain in Cornwall and when I got home from work was annoyed to see that the back door had water leaking through it and into the kitchen and the garage roof was leaking like a sieve.

With the water swept and and distributed to dry it quicker and some buckets in place we are temporarily in control of the situation until the next down pour. We now need to add fixing roofs and doors to the long list of DIY that the house needs.

Look our bedroom is nearly finished!!!! Some amazing before and after pictures.

I'm too excited even as I type that our bedroom is very, very nearly finished! I know I've been saying that for weeks but we really are very close now, so close in fact that we have actually made up the bed ready to move in!

We have three drawer handles to fit on to the dressing table, as well as the main door furniture to fit on the bedroom door. We need to buy a dressing table stool which is proving incredible tricky to find one to fit in with the rest of our bedroom and lastly we need to choose some vinyl to cover the dressing table and then we are finished! 100% finished and ready to move in, although I think we will move in this weekend regardless of whether we have chosen the vinyl and the dressing table stool as several hours have been spent both in stores and online looking for the perfect products and we can't find any that jump out and complete the room, so we would prefer to wait until we find the perfect products and move in anyway.

Here's how the room is looking right now. I'd love to know your thoughts....

 

Hard to believe the room looked like this just 10 months ago! 

It's the finishing touches that make a room complete

When we bought our first ever house together just over two years ago a friend said to us it'll never be finished, as soon as you finish one job a previous will need redoing and as for the garden it'll be a full time job keeping it maintained.

Although the downstairs of the house looks finished, or at least finished enough to live in whilst we continue work upstairs their are many jobs that still need final finishes downstairs. The skirtings are only balanced in place waiting to build custom build cupboards in the alcoves to then fit the skirtings to. The plinths above the kitchen cupboards are again not fixed and require painting. Then there are edges of walls that have been chipped when moving materials and furniture up and down the stairs that need touching in.

However in the bedroom we are finishing this 100% before moving in. Filling minor holes and flaws in walls and the ceiling, window frames sanded back and painted even getting all new soft furnishings including duvet covers, curtains and cushions. Downstairs we've made do with our old lamp shade temporarily until we find one to suit the room, our cushions from our old rented house, as well as the old TV stand that has been with us for over 6 years and being a black and glass unit does not fit in with our country cottage feel for the room. These things will all be replaced and remade eventually but are temporary whilst we work elsewhere on the house. But the bedroom is different the master bedroom that we have waited over two years to complete is going to be 100% finished to a high standard before we move in.

This week we have worked hard on finishing touches, we've put a mirror up above the dressing table area.

The window frame has been sanded and painted.

The new bedroom door has been hung, that's now three out of the four rooms upstairs with new doors and just the box room left needing it's new matching bedroom door.

There are a few jobs left to finish but we should be able to move in very soon. We need to find a vinyl to cover the top of the dressing table and also find a dressing table stool that matches the rest of the bedroom.
We also need to fit three new drawer handles on the dressing table draws and fit the door handles to the door and the room is ready to dress and move in. Now to get shopping for those last few bits and finally move into our gorgeous master bedroom. It's already looking beautiful and It will definitely be worth the two year wait and a lot of hard work!

Stripping wall paper in the landing

Although our main focus of attention has been to complete the master bedroom lately but jobs in the bedroom aren't always a two person job and my partner is fine on his own working in the bedroom. Whilst he works in the bedroom adding finishing and final touches I make a start on the landing striping off all the old wallpaper ready to have the landing and stairs plastered.

The wall the follows up alongside the stairs is particularly wonky from top to bottom and may need plaster boarding before it is plastered but due to the thickness of the available area we might not be able to use a timber frame to hold the plaster board and may need to use a dot and dab technique for the plaster board. Either way the wallpaper on this wall needs removing and that's my job for the day!

With a make shift plank of wood screwed over the stairs it gives my a rather scary plinth above the stairs to work on the higher parts of the wall.

Several hours later the wall is striped of all remnants of wallpaper and lining paper and ready for the next stage in the house. We aren't sure where to spend our money next. Getting the hallway complete would not only transform the upstairs landing but it would be the last remaining bit downstairs that still looks like a building site. But there's a part of me that thinks we should finish the bedrooms first and then move out to the landing. I don't want to be damaging the freshly plastered landing by moving furniture and materials into the other bedrooms. 

Until we are ready to make that decision it is back to working on the master bedroom to get that one finally finshed. 

Finishing touches in the master bedroom

We had the wall lights fitted last week and then had the task of looking for a lamp shade for the master bedroom. You wouldn't think that buying a lamp shade was a hard task but when you have two people with absolutely no idea what we both want it is quite a challenge. After a few hours at lighting show rooms, The Range, Homebase and Dunelm Mill we both found ourselves drawn to the dame lamp shade. 

Again neither of us had in mind that we wanted a paper lamp shade that cost a small fortune due to it's Habitat price tag but we both stood in the store looking at this intricately folded piece of paper and both agreed that this was the one we wanted! 

Next job is to start assembling the bed in the room and we start to see what our new bedroom is going to look like once finished and I'm really excited to say it's looking fabulous and I can't wait for it to be finished and move into our lovely new master bedroom.

Final painting in the master bedroom

After 2 years of owning our first ever house and gutting every room it's really exciting to finally see the master bedroom coming together. The whole time we have owned this house we have moved from room to room. Temporarily in one room whilst we work on the other and vice versa. We've moved from room to room whilst the plumbing was being completed. We've moved from room to room when the rooms were actually structured  and even slept in the room with plastic sheeting between us and the room next door when the walls were removed.

We made the decision to remove the bedroom wall and make the second bedroom smaller to enable us to use the extra space in the master bedroom to build inbuilt wardrobes. At the time I did wonder if it would all be worth it, the dust, the mess, the noise and the massive lack of somewhere to really relax and sleep but now the room is coming together it was all definitely worth it.

Last week we had the carpet fitted, and after two years my bare feet felt carpet under foot for the first time and it was definitely worth the wait. However soon after the carpet was laid it was quickly covered up with dust sheets to protect it whilst we complete a little more painting in the room,

 The ceiling that was once black and mouldy is finally now gorgeous crisp and white. The skirting boards that were also recently fitted are now also painted in an off white colour and the room is really starting to look finished and very professional and most of all very inviting and I can't wait to move in.