Interiors

As a designer and lover of all things colour, textiles and pattern I can’t avoid being a lover of interior design. My guilty pleasure is interiors magazines, hoards of them, I’m still looking for a bookcase large enough to hold them all.

I’ve owned quite a few properties in my time but we have finally found our forever home, a gorgeous Victorian Villa. We moved in December 2011 and boy is this house a labour of love, not to mention a money pit. Think no central heating, barely any hot water, peeling wallpaper (layers of it) and a very antiquated electric system. But as every room is starting from scratch, (literally, stripping back to the original brick) it has meant we can create each room exactly as we want it and I have had free reign to be a little more creative with the finishes.

Anyway, all that said, I thought I’d share some of the renovation highlights (and lowlights!) with you, but mostly the lovely finished pictures. Oh, and did I mention I’m married to a builder!

Big Girl’s Room

“I’d like a blue room please” was the request from my 6 year old, “teal blue walls”, she was very specific, “bunk beds…and maybe a tree-house too!!”.
This room is North facing and had a dark green carpet and pale green ceiling, but was still very dark, so the thought of painting the room entirely in a light sapping blue, which would be really cold was not an option.

The renovation took us nearly 9 months, we were a bit stop-start with this one and we finally completed the room in September 2016. We managed to keep most of the renovation under wraps, she got to see her bed when it had first been installed, but then didn’t see it until it was painted, finished and dressed. I painstakingly painted the trees on the walls myself, but it was worth all the time and effort, to say she was speechless when she saw it was an understatement, she just giggled her way around. Now she’s settled in we often find her hiding out behind her curtained den, or chilled out on her tree bunk reading.

Little Girl’s Room

“I’d like a pink room please” said my then 3 year old!
When we moved into our house it was still two flats, so what was the upstairs kitchen, we initially used as a laundry and shower room, but completely stripped it to return it to a lovely bedroom for our youngest daughter.

When I found the beautiful wallpaper, with lots of pink butterflies, that was the starting point for the room. Completed in April 2016, my daughter initially cried when she saw the pale blue walls and thought the decorators had painted it the wrong colour, but once I had ‘dressed’ the room with all the girly and pink accessories it was “the best bedroom ever!”.

The Family Bathroom

So this beauty used to be a small bathroom with a separate toilet and was finished in October 2015. It will eventually just be my children’s bathroom (2 girls) when I have the luxury of my own ensuite. In the meantime it is currently the only toileting facility in the house (there’s often a queue!) as we have demolished most of downstairs to create an open-plan kitchen, living, diner with lots of big glass doors onto the garden [sigh].