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

Cookery Calendar Challenge

One thing I have realised while taking part in Penny's Cookery Calendar Challenge is how important our Sunday evening family meals are to me. We try to eat together during the week but often, with after school commitments and depending on when John gets home from work, the children will eat earlier, between five and six, and John and I will eat later, usually after eight when Bella and Angus are in bed. The downside to that is cooking twice, unless it's something I can re-heat, and eating late. But the upside is the time John and I get together to chat over a meal. I like that.

But, Sunday evenings are for family meals. In the winter it's most likely to be a roast, stew, casserole or pie, something that takes a while to prepare. In the summer is can be anything, a barbecue, pasta, a salad, whatever takes our fancy. The children usually leave the table as soon as they're eaten dessert (if there is one) leaving John and I to sit at the table and chat, pour another glass of wine, put some music on. It's nice.

And so last Sunday, we ate Chicken Pilaf from Nigella Summer, my chosen book for July. Diced chicken breast is marinaded in yogurt, lemon juice and cinnamon before being fried then added to rice cooked in chicken stock flavoured with saffron and lemon zest.

It all cooks quickly and comes together in no time. At the last minute you add toasted almonds and pine nuts, chopped parsley and I added pomegrante seeds too because I thought they'd work, and they did.

Then you have that gratifying moment of carrying food to the table in a huge dish, and placing it in the middle with a spoon for everyone to help themselves. Although, it was just John and I as I'd kept aside Bella and Angus some of the chicken and rice before adding the nuts and herbs, as I knew these would not be well received.

It was ok. The flavours were good but I found it a little dry. I don't know if that was me overcooking it, but it needed a little something, olive oil maybe, to coat it all. It was very good cold the next day with some salad though. The kids found the lemony flavour a little strong but did eat it, mainly because they were hungry and there wasn't anything else.

My second recipe was lamb meatballs served with pitta bread, salad and hummous. I really enjoyed mixing all the ingredients together and rolling the little meatballs between my hands, watching them form pleasing rows on the baking tray.

Then they are pan fried before being served with salad (lettuce, tomatoes, red onion), lemon wedges, hummous and Greek yogurt. So it's a glorified sandwich really, but the benefit is that we could all add as much or as little of the different elements as we liked, which worked well.

However, despite containing four teaspoons of dried oregano and the same of dried mint, plus garlic and lemon zest, John and I both found the meatballs disappointingly bland. Lamb is a strong flavoured meat and goes so well with spices, so if I made these again I'd be tempted to add a lot of chilli, harissa or paprika, something with some heat, as well as all the other flavours, although I'd leave out the dried mint because I couldn't taste it at all, and it was a brand new bottle. It was a nice meal, but just ok. Not amazing. 

So, I remain ambivalent about this Nigella book, the only one - apart from Nigellissima - that I don't regularly use. The recipes all sound tempting and there's lots of things in here that I'd like to make but I feel a bit flat about the results of my cooking here. I'm going to keep it though - there is a whole chapter devoted to ice cream and a recipe for redcurrant sorbet, which I might make one day with the growing stash of redcurrants lurking in the bottom of my freezer.

Continuing with the summery there, August's book will be Mexican Food Made Simple by Thomasina Miers. 

The Last Week of July

And the first week of the summer holidays almost over, just like that. August is just around the corner and I know that, when we return from our holiday in a few weeks, everything will be a shade less green and there will be blackberries in the hedgerows. It feels like we are racing through the seasons, racing through this year, and I would like to slow down a little please. I'm in summer mode, even if the weather isn't.

I had such a good day today though. From 9.30 am to 3.30 pm Bella and Angus attended a holiday club at a local school with all their cousins. I dropped them off with packed lunches and water bottles, handed over my money and drove home. It was like being a stay at home mum again! I made a coffee then went upstairs and finished some jobs in our bedroom. Then I came downstairs and cleaned up. I ate lunch, alone, with a magazine. Then I caught up on some admin while listening to episode after episode of The Archers (I am so behind). Mainly I just enjoyed solitude, something I cherish but rarely seem to find.

I really needed today because the last few days have been busy. We've been to IKEA, I have sanded my dressing table and painted it white, I've swapped around furniture and sorted through drawers, cleaned, ironed, written holiday lists. Our bedroom is almost finished, just a shelf to hang and we're there. 

But there are good things going on amongst the hubbub, like end of term gifts, both received....

and given. I'd been hanging on to those tins for a while, not really sure what to do with them, and had a last minute brain wave. I wanted to give the teachers plants, but a dripping plastic flower pot didn't look great, and these were perfect. 

Lemon drizzle cake on a wet Sunday afternoon. It is the best cake ever. Not a glamorous cake, or a fussy one, but quick to make, easy to bake and easy to eat too.

I finally finished Barney the Barn Owl, a birthday present for my owl-loving god-daughter. 

We'll overlook the fact that her birthday was in January and focus in his handsome good looks and oversized feet (which were an absolute bugger to crochet, although worth it.)

My dear friend Charlotte celebrated her birthday this week and so, with my sister watching my two, we went out for lunch to a country pub. It was such a mid-week treat. (Oh, I could so enjoy being a stay at home parent again...) I also made her this little wall hanging after she admired the one I made Angus for his room.

I must be feeling creative, because I also made a little hanging planter with the leftover black yarn from my espadrilles.

Oh, and I spray painted these wooden drawer knobs copper! Aren't they great? I'm really happy with them. I mean, I don't think for a second that anyone's going to mistake them for real copper but they cost me nothing and make me very happy.

I also sorted out my fabric stash, a job that forced itself to be done when I swapped over the chest of drawers that was in our living room to our bedroom. I was ruthless and anything I no longer liked I either threw out or gave to the charity shop, depending on condition and quantity. And now I have all these pieces and, as ever, plans for quilts but I can never seem to decide on a pattern or colour scheme. 

The garden is looking a little wild and untended lately and nearly all the plants in my tubs and pots have finished. I don't know if this means they've naturally come to the end of their life or they died because I forgot to dead-head them. The latter is the more likely outcome, if I'm honest. 

But the sweet peas are still growing.and I picked my first homegrown courgettes today. They're tiny, but I was worried if I left them any longer they would just rot on the plant. Enough for me to make a very little courgette fritter for lunch tomorrow, perhaps.

Oh, I bought a bikini! Remember my swimwear shopping traumas from a few weeks ago? Well I spent £60 in Bravissimo and now have a really nice, well fitting black bikini (this one) although sadly my figure isn't quite as trim as the model's, but in the interest of being a good role model for my daughter - and laziness on my part - I am embracing my curves and wobbly bits and am just going to wear it and have a good time on holiday. How vain am I to think that anyone cares what I look like anyway?

The next few days will be busy still, with shopping and packing and running around doing last minute errands. Then we sail to France and there will hopefully be sun (please let there be sun) and nice food and wine, and good company, but most importantly time; time to read, to sew, to talk, to crochet and lots of time to sleep. 

Recommendations

Hello! How are you? We've broken up for the holidays - hurrah! - but sadly there is no time for lie-ins and lazy days here, as I am frantically trying to finish our bedroom before we go on holiday next weekend. And do a million other things too, of course, like referee Bella and Angus. I spent a very happy day yesterday cleaning and sorting. I told the kids that we were having a home day and to amuse themselves (this can go one of two ways) while I sorted piles of junk that had built up here and there, moved back all the displaced furniture from when we decorated our bedroom, dusted and vacuumed and mopped. It felt good. Maybe not the most exciting start to our holidays but it needed to be done.

I have a few recommendations for you today, a few things I want to tell you about. Some I've been kindly sent to review, others I just want to share with you because I just really like them and think you might too.

:: Beth Pegler's beautiful, simple handmade jewellery, made from knotted rope. My sisters gave me this necklace for Christmas and it's one of my most worn items of jewellery. It looks especially good over a striped Breton top which is handy as I have, oh, one or two of those. 

And then I recently treated myself to another necklace and a little pile of these gorgeous bracelets. They are so tactile and soft against the skin, but not itchy as I have found yarn-covered jewellery to be. Do have a look at her shop. 

:: Espadrilles! Yes, I crocheted my own shoes! I do realise that sounds a little far-fetched, but look at them, aren't they fabulous? Wool and the Gang kindly sent me one of their kits a while back (quite a while actually...) and I finally got around to making them.

They were a gratifyingly quick make and I was able to crochet all four sections while watching the men's Wimbledon single's final last Sunday and then spent two evenings sewing the fabric heel and toe to the sole. This is not difficult, but I found it a little fiddly and hard on the fingers, but the end result is very pleasing.

Never mind the fact that I don't have any euros yet, or travel insurance, and haven't even thought about packing, I have espadrilles so I'm ready to travel.

:: Alice in Scandiland's blog. I discovered this via Alice's instagram account and find her style of decorating very inspiring, especially her creativity and eye for shape and design. But recently I was very taken with her wonderfully original handmade garden furniture. 

Photo by Alice J Collyer, used with permission.

Because the thing is, we really need some new garden furniture. The set we have only has three chairs for starters, and there are four of us, so that's already annoying, and bits wobble and fall off frequently. But wooden garden furniture is really expensive, even in the sales. But after seeing Alice's creation, and looking into the hair pin legs, and the cost of wood, I'm now working on John to see if he might fancy whipping me up an outdoor table and two benches sometime this summer. 

:: I was kindly send two LSA Bud Vases and very lovely they are two. I like this size of vase because you can easily fill them with a few snipped blooms from the garden without wiping out all your flowers. 

They are mouth blown from a single piece of glass and have a beautifully organic shape and come in some lovely colours. I gave the blue one to Bella's teacher as an end of term gift and she was really over the moon with it, absolutely adored it.

:: Power Ballads. I don't know if you know this about me, but I love two things very much: Radio 4 and power ballads. And while I was pottering around in the kitchen yesterday, listening to Radio 4 as is my way, I happened to catch the most brilliant programme called How to Write a Power Ballad, presented by the Rev Richard Coles (I love him too, actually.) It was fascinating, what goes into a song - technically - to make it sound and feel a certain way. And, while listening, I found out that there is a club night in London where all they play is power ballads. It's true! This might be my ultimate night out and I think I'm going to make John take me there for my fortieth birthday next year. Anyway, do have a listen on the iPlayer if you get a moment.

All white

Well, it was going to happen. I have been itching to begin decorating our bedroom for months and months, and it finally happened at the weekend. I am not entirely sure of the wisdom of undertaking such a decorating project a week before the end of term and in the midst of a few seriously busy and pressured weeks at work, but I can't moan because it was all my idea. John (who actually quite enjoys decorating and is very good at it although he'd deny both accusations) sweetly indulged my ideas and conceded that there were things he'd also like to change. 

There was nothing especially wrong with the room, just a collection of lots of things that weren't working. The awful, awful carpet - with a pile so ruined that you could run the vacuum cleaner over it for half an hour and it still wouldn't pick up the hair on it - had to go. The blue paint colour wasn't working for me anymore, nor was the position of the bed in relation to practical things like plug sockets. I have learnt that decorating an empty house before moving in, while time-saving, isn't a long-term solution. There were other smaller details; a falling to pieces laundry basket, too-small mirror and furniture that had seen better days. 

I was - and still am - excited about transforming our bedroom on a limited budget, as I did with Bella and Angus's bedrooms. There are things we would love to do to this house: rip out and replace the bathroom, replace the flooring in the hallway and living room, fit a new front door etc. But these things run to thousands, not hundreds of pounds and take serious and lengthy saving - especially if we want the odd holiday too! - and so for now I am enjoying refreshing our bedrooms on fairly small budgets, around £100-£200 per room.

So on Saturday morning, and with the help of my parents, we emptied the room (sleeping downstairs on the bed on the spare room for the next three nights) and lightly sanded the floorboards with a handheld sander.

Overall they were in great condition, apart from a few boards that had been damaged by a long-since-fixed leak. My dad (he's ace) replaced them and the rest we painted with some of that Damp Stop stuff before applying the floor paint.

We managed to paint the ceiling and start the walls that afternoon too.

Poor Angus had to put up with a room full of furniture for a few days.

 On Sunday John and I finished the walls, applied two coats of floor paint and undercoated the skirting boards. It sounds like a lot of work but there was lots of time for crochet and watching the Wimbledon final between jobs.

 Then on Monday, while I was at work, John gave the floor two more coats of paint and finished the woodwork.

It was hot over the weekend and the door to the balcony was open the whole time we were in the house.

It's just gorgeous when the sun streams in, bright and clean. Not everyone likes pure white, and some find it cold, but this room faces south-west and the light is warm. Too warm sometimes. I know that some also find floorboards cold and draughty. But this house, built in the late sixties, is warm and well insulated. I might feel differently if we lived in a huge Victorian pile. And, as John said, the carpets were going either way. If in a few years we decide that, actually, we'd like carpet again, then we'll fit carpet. Nothing is forever.

 This was the room last night. Very bare and empty, but beautifully calm and cool. Of course it needs pictures, plants and rugs, and there is more furniture to move back in, but I love it so far, especially the position of the bed under the picture rail. 

So far, any money spent has been on paint. Around £60 on two tins of floor paint and £30 on white wall paint. I intend to re-use as much as possible  - furniture, prints, lamps etc - from other parts of the house, even re-painting drawer pulls rather than buying new ones, and will re-paint my dressing table this weekend. I'm not sure what to do with the chest of drawers yet. I may paint it, or swap it with the one that's currently in our living room. I have ordered some lovely shelves though. And there will be plants - lots and lots of plants.