Room Tour: Our Bedroom

My favourite room in our house is usually the one I have most recently decorated, and that is certainly so here. I adore this room and I am over the moon with how it has turned out, considering all we've done is decorate and move furniture around.

After painting the ceiling, walls and floorboards white, we moved the bed onto the wall under the picture ledge - previously it had been positioned so that you faced the window when sitting in bed - so that you see it as soon as you enter the room. I prefer it here, and it's easier to move around the bed. I changed a few pictures and moved ones from other parts of the house, and the bedside tables and lamps are as before.

When the lampshade on our overhead light fell apart when taken down, I bought a new one and love this rattan shade. It casts such a warm, filtered light around the room which really helps with all that white.

One thing we did buy is a new mirror. You can see what the old one was like here, and it was so small - we all irritated each other by trying to stand in front of it at the same time. I love this mirror for it's simplicity and the way it sits on the floor (although don't worry, it is very securely fixed to the wall) and bounces so much more light around the room. This bedroom - like all our bedrooms - is small and so you need all the decorating tricks.

Our other purchase was this little set of shelves. I really like the open quality of the design.

The chest of drawers used to live downstairs in our living room. I kept it as it was and just painted the handles white. It is larger than the one we previously had and gives us more much needed storage.

Grandma's planter looks lovely in here now. I like having some natural wood tones in the room, rather than everything white, as it warms is up a bit and provides a bit of interest.

The rugs are ones I made a couple of years ago and sit either side of the bed. They have some nice grey sheepskins in IKEA which may find their way into my trolley during a future visit.

You may remember I painted my dressing table two years ago. While I always liked the off-white colour I was really disappointed with how the chalk paint wore over time. So I sanded it all right back to the wood (that was a right job, let me tell you - my poor nails!) and painted it with two coats of undercoat and then two of white water based eggshell. I also repainted the handles the same grey as the chair.

It looks sharper and cleaner now. And do you see that gorgeous grey Robert's radio on top? It used to belong to my Grandma and sat on her dressing table. My mum recently passed it on to me. It crackles a little when you switch it on and off but is otherwise sound.

There are a lot of plants, eight I think. And I deliberately added black here and there as I think the room really needs a little black to add contrast and break up all the white, pink and grey.

I hope you like it. I enjoyed this project hugely, and John really likes it too (which is handy). I'm pleased with how much I was able to change just by repainting or moving things around, rather than buying new, and we tried as hard as possible to stick to a budget without being too strict about it. 

Useful links:

Wall paint - pure brilliant white emulsion by Valspar from B&Q

Floor paint - Ronseal Diamond Hard Floor Paint in White

Lampshade - Homebase

Mirror - IKEA

Shelves - Skandium

Pink hanging planter and fairy lights around mirror - Tiger