Good evening everyone! I just wanted to pop on here and speak to you lovely lot about how I created my gallery wall. In this house we are very lucky to have a Double- L shaped staircase. This creates drama and volume to the hallway and is such a lovely feature that made us fall in love with the house when we came to view it. Although it can be quite a tricky space to dress. Here are some before photos from the estate agents website. I wanted to create something showstopping and at the same time a place that would showcase our family and passions. I didnt want it to be too controlled and impersonal. I drew inspiration from many places, Pinterest was a firm favourite and I scoured the internet pinning all the photos that I loved and thought would work in the space. I also drew from a fellow blogger Lisa Dawson who created this fabulous gallery wall pictured below.
The evolution of the space that I created was very organic, we had en-massed a lot of prints and photos from holidays and trips abroad. I also bough some prints of my favourite artworks and had some bespoke framing made for oddly sized pieces. The lay out I took was to decide on a main piece for each wall, and then build around it. Selecting other images that work well next to and around it. I went for a very eclectic frame collection, from brand new to vintage. I also liked using different depths of frames to create volume to the wall so that not all the pictures were at the same depth. I also wanted to hang a beautiful vintage obi (the traditional belt worn around a kimono) which I bought in Kyoto, Japan. This is around 3.5 long so I had to find a specific site for it to be shown off in all its drama, which was to be on the top staircase. The thing about putting pictures all the way down just above the skirting boards is that on a standard wall it might not look well and you wont really every appreciate the art there, but on a staircase as you are constantly on a different level with each step you eye is on level with another piece of art or picture and therefore even at skirting board height, its visible from the landing just below, so why not put some art there? As a backdrop for this artwork I was torn between gorgeously dark and mysterious or light and airy. I decided to op for the latter as the hall is North East Facing and despite it being quite tall doesn't always seem so airy and bright, and with a very busy gallery wall I opted for a warm white, Great White by Farrow and Ball. It has a very delicate pink/lilac tint to it making it a warm white to use. Perfect for my hall/staircase. So with art all framed and scattered all over the house it came down to one day to collect all the pieces together and with a lot of nails and a hammer, the gallery wall was created. So a picture says a thousand words, so Ill just shut up now and let you have a look for yourself. Here are some shots over time as it has evolved, including some with a cheeky bit of Christmas garland!
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Hey folks, I realise its been way too long since I last posted but if you have been keeping up to date with my Instagram we have been working really hard at finishing off the attic bedroom which is now nearly complete. This is the biggest bedroom in the house and we stayed in it for the first few months and had it re-plastered over the summer which meant its been ready for a makeover for a while but we distracted by the staircase (see my previous post), but now we finally did it. My design process with this room is that I wanted to create something calming and serene at the top of the house, somewhere to escape to. We wanted this room to be versatile as a guest bedroom with two twin beds that can be joined up to make a super king sized bed. We also wanted the design to be warm and modern but still layered, characterful and cosy. It posed its own challenges which I shall discuss below but here are a few before photos. The first two are the estate agents photos, and the panorama shot is when we moved in. I think its safe to say that I absolutely hated this room. I hated the migraine inducing wallpaper in a velvety damask and bright pink/red. I hated the black high gloss wardrobe fronts and I hated the cracked plaster work. It was not a very relaxing room but we stayed in it as it had built in wardrobes and good storage. I'm still surprised that I didn't at least paint over that awful wallpaper which caused me such upset. Once we moved out of this room we got our revenge though. Ripping off that wallpaper (and the 4 layers of paper below it) was so satisfying. From the pictures above you can already see how much more calming that room became without a wall screaming out at you. The other thing that struck me about this room is the lines. So many lines! The pitch of the ceiling, the joists, the chimney breasts, all at different slants to each other joined with a combination of sharp angles and soft curves. Our plasterer got to work on this room, and its fair to say that he did not enjoy it at all and one day once he finished I found him sat down looking particularly broken and said that he was going to retire as he didn't enjoy these complex projects any more!!!! oopsie!
The next thing to tackle was the wardrobes. I debated ripping them out for all of 3 seconds, I just hated their colour and finish, but they were solidly built and did use the space very well, so I would only be replacing them with something very similar. The other alternative was to change the doors, but unfortunately these doors are a custom height which uses as much space as possible which is great from a storage point of view but not so great from ease of change. We did find some companies online that did offer custom doors but the cost was higher than I had budgeted for so we went for the simplest option. Paint!
Now that the painting was all finished we had to get down to dressing the room! I wanted to again create more drama in this room by creating an apex curtain across the whole wall where the window was. The idea behind this was to create a cosier feel in the room with texture and add to the insulation of the thin outer wall. To create the whole wall of curtain I fixed tracks as close to the ceiling along the whole end wall of the room. The centre portion have a draw string to allow them to be opened easily, and the two end diagonal tracks were fixed and would never really be opened or drawn (as you can see there is only wall behind them). I used dark grey Ikea curtains which are also black out and textured to compliment the look of the room. The end panels didn't really hang straight down as I had imagined they would, so I gathered the fabric in the end panels to fill out the space properly. I might live with it for a bit and see if it bothers me, in which case some inventive sewing will be in order (I have never sewn anything in my life, apart from a button, hence the fear). After an evening on my knees with Allen keys we got the beds and bedside tables up. The room came together super quickly after that with a few lamps I already had and some cosy throws and rugs we ended up with the nearly finished room below! I hope you like the room as I am super chuffed with it. The only thing left is to create a headboard that allows the beds to be used as a twins and also as a super king. I have been mega inspired by the fabulous headboard over at frenchforpinapple (insta) which is pretty epic and would be great in this space and would stretch the whole length of the wall behind the beds and bedside tables. So I just need to find the correct fabric now... watch this space. If you want to see the whole process in video format, have a look at my Attic Bedroom Highlight on my Instagram page.
Lots more projects coming your way soon so stay tuned. BTW I know there might be some comments about the fur throw in the bedroom, but this is farmed reindeer from Norway, they are farmed for their meat a cows are in this country, and skinned the same way sheep skins are used in this country (there is also a sheep skin in this room near the arm chair). I bought this when I was 16 and travelling in Scandinavia. Hello Everyone! Welcome back! I am super excited about revealing to you this fabulous collaboration I have been involved with Christy to promote their latest bedding range. Christy are a company based in the North West with a long history of looped cloth production, founded in 1850! When the team from Christy and I were in talks about a collaboration I was so excited! I can hardly begin explain what a privilege it is to work with such a lovely company. You must have seen their infamous Wimbledon and Ascot towels everywhere on social media and on TV. I revealed on my stories a while ago that we received a lovely package from Christy and I've gotten around do doing some styling with these beautiful products. I choose the Deco Bed Linen in Platinum for a classic look (I love classic white sheets in my bedrooms). These wonderful 300 thread count, 100% cotton sheets are super silky soft and the quality is evident as soon as they came out of the packaging! The plain white sheets have a slight sateen quality to them that makes them feel uber luxurious and the embroidered trim in a platinum colour finishes off the look. I have used a combination of the Oxford pillowcase with their standard pillow case and paired it with the Amalfi Throw and Pillowsham in Midnight blue. This is a super king bed in the main bedroom and I love how lush it looks with all the fluffy pillows and the superb linens. I decided to experiment and also style up my guest bedroom with the flat sheet, which also has embroidery on one edge and reuse the Amalfi Pillowsham and throw again here. Both of these styled up bedrooms have turned out equally lovely and I cant wait to get into bed and snuggle up! I'm sure my guests in the double guest bedroom (pictured below) will feel equally lush!
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