A spring spruce: home updates inside and out

Over the Easter holidays we made a couple of small updates to the house and I thought you might enjoy seeing them, knowing how you appreciate domestic details like this as much as me.

The first job was to give the shed a bit of love. Here it is looking very sad and dirty.

Ever since we bought the shed, about four years ago, I have wanted the windows to look less stark. I decided to soften them by adding some strips of wood to try to create the effect of mullioned windows. I measured my windows, bought some wooden beading from B&Q, cut it to size then painted the pieces with white wood paint suitable for outdoors. 

My Dad helped me glue these painted strips onto the glass (after giving it a good clean).

Then I filled the window boxes with fresh compost and planted them up with geraniums.

I also washed down the shed and jet washed the pebbles, just to give it all a bit of a spruce up.

Before:

And after:

I'm really happy with how it looks now. The shed is so visible from the kitchen and this just makes it look a bit prettier.

Along with a freshly washed and painted decking area, and new outdoor chairs, the whole area had a freshen up ready for the summer.

We also gave our bedroom a fresh coat of paint. The floorboards and walls were really scuffed and it was looking a bit sad. I went round and round in circles looking at wallpaper for this room but in the end decided to stay with paint, but not white this time. I had to contend with perfectly good (although old) curtains and a rug, both of which are patterned and different colours, and all our bedding and blankets in a multitude of patterns and colours. The thought of trying to find a wallpaper that worked with all this (and that John also liked - he does not enjoy anything too floral or "chintzy", his word) was exhausting so I just chose a paint colour instead.

We had to work around the bed which was tricky but manageable. We painted the walls in Taupe 05 by Lick. I wanted something fairly neutral but warm.

Then we gave the floorboards a sand and two coats of white floor paint. 

When I got the the threshold between the bedroom and landing, it became clear that the landing would also need sanding and painting.

Luckily our landing is very small.

Here you get a better sense of the colour with the bedroom curtains. Maybe I could have gone for wallpaper, I don't know, but thinking about it stopped being fun so that makes me think paint was the right choice.

Here is the room from the other side.

We decided to give my dressing table a coat of paint at the same time. John did all the work on this, I have to admit. He sanded the old white paint (very scratched and stained especially on top) and sanded the top section right back to the wood,

 

We chose grey paint as it needed to work with the existing yellow chair and rug. I was going to order new handles but decided in the end to paint the existing ones pink.

I am really pleased with how it came out. Below you can see previous incarnations - when I painted it in chalk paint (such a disaster) many years ago (we still had the horrible bedroom carpet!)

And when I painted it white with grey handles maybe five or six years ago. I do still really like this look to be honest. Very soothing. 

Overall I'm pleased with the new bedroom. There is a little more colour but it still feels calm and organised. I always love that big clean out that comes with emptying a room of furniture and giving it all a really big sort and clean. 

It is still small with a tiny wardrobe but it does have so much light . We saved money by keeping all the existing furniture. dry cleaning the existing curtains instead of replacing with new, choosing paint over wallpaper and painting the dressing table and handles. Other jobs on the house need to be done (work on the chimney - boring and expensive) so we needed to keep to a budget. Decorating is always so much about compromise, isn't it?