I have always been fascinated by older houses and their history. Every new owner changes something and these are passed onto the next people living in the space. Our house is not any different. The grand staircase going up the centre of the house has many doors leading off into various rooms, but one of these doors is a fake! The original house used to have a separate bathroom and water-closet (WC), but a few owners ago this layout was changed and the two rooms were knocked through to create a spacious en suite for one of the bedrooms, and the bathroom was moved into one of the bedrooms (Link to see this space). This left two redundant doors in the hallway, as the access to this room was though a new doorway directly into the bedroom. A while ago one of the owners decided to get rid of one of the door ways and leave the other (who knows why!), but this created the perfect opportunity for my project! I have always wanted to create a doorway bookshelf. I believe that storing books in a redundant doorway has a magical, naria-esque, romance to it. The mystery of where that door lead to, is mirrored in the mysteries held amongst the pages of those books held within it. The above photos show some of the inspirational shots you can also see on my staircase board on Pinterest. With these I wanted to freshen up our space. Our door doesn't open or needed to be walked through like the blue one above (although these doors are super cool and some amazing IG folk have got these beauties - see below). So the process was relatively simple!
, Btw as mentioned above, here are some other beautiful doorway bookshelves from some real homes in the UK! If you know of any others please send them to me!
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I was invited to their Christmas launch (Blog here) and I was so utterly impressed and surprised by their products that I wanted to create an epic garland for the front door. We were so so pleased with our brand spanking new front door in its bright yellow that I wanted to create something pretty wow to frame it and really make a grand welcome for all our guests over the Christmas season. Did I mention we are hosting a Fake Christmas Dinner for 16 this weekend?!!! Anyway - slow, deep breaths required! Back to the garland, so above here is a little snap of the door pre-chrismassification (yes that is a word). So to create the garland this is what I did! I also created a stories collection (aka Highlight) on my Instagram so if you prefer a video then head here.
6. I then laid the berry garlands on top of the green and tried to make sure they are as centred as possible, so if you have any lengths of bare green garland, these are at the edges and equal in length (Approximately). I then attached the berries to the main garland again winding the branches around each other to get them to stay how I wanted and I also kept the lights on at this stage so that I can appreciate where the lights were in relation to the foliage and berries, also it looked pretty and motivated me! 7. Next step was applying the sparkle, as I didn't have enough length of the gold sparkle fronds (not sure if that is the correct term to describe them) I took each one apart by unwrapping the ribbon around the wire frame and basically pulling each separate frond apart, this left me with two piles of different sized fronds (and a lot of glitter). I then went around fitting the individual sparkly fronds onto the garland in a relatively balanced way. Again each one has a metal wire backbone so relatively easy to wind around and attach to the garland. This created a really bespoke and expensive looking garland for a fraction of the cost! 8. Hang it! So this all depends on what type of house you have but we have crazy hard bricks in this house so a while with my percussion drill and some heavy duty screw eyes gave me the sturdy base to hang the garland off with some extra wire. Plug it in and enjoy the visual feast! Et Voila! you are done! As always pleas let me know what you think and comment below! xoxo
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!
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. Hey everyone! I just wanted to put a quick post up about taking risks and a leap. In the latest update here AtNumer18 we have painted the panelling under the stairs to match the walls. I had a lot of fear about this and my partner and I have been discussing the virtues and vices of this decision ever since we bought the house in February 2017! Some people have asked why this decision was so hard, why such deliberation?! Well, we bought this 1890s house because its period features drew us to it. Everything from the front door, the swirling staircase the hand painted stained glass, the wood coving, the extra high skirting boards, the wood panelling under the stairs, the curved walls (a complete pain to re-plaster btw). These features are little stars of brilliance that makes this house unique and replacing such features would be prohibitively expensive. Therefore when renovating this house we wanted to do right by these features and the house by doing a very sensitive restoration/renovation balance. We wanted to update the draughty issues and improve the energy efficiency of the house in keeping with modern standards bu at the same time keep true to the original design of the house. This is why we have spent a small fortune on the windows by encapsulating the stained glass with soundproof and laminated glass. This was a relatively easy decision, as the current windows were so draughty, some windows didn't close properly, missing window panes taped over with DUCT TAPE! (See above) and some were so bowed they were in danger of completely falling out and shattering! The new windows are super silent, warmer, draught proof and super easy to clean too as all you need to do is wipe them down rather than each individual small pane of glass in turn. In relation to our latest tribulation, the decision to paint the panelling under the stairs! It has been stained a very dark mahogany colour and the flooring was chosen to match it, therefore the effect is that the whole hall, despite being relatively large, felt dark and the features were not appreciated. So a solution was needed. Unfortunately the original parquet floor was no longer present under the current floor and sadly we didn't have the budget to reinstate it currently. I bought a massive antique mirror to hang in the hall to reflect as much light as possible, still too dark. The walls were, stripped from their cafe latte coloured wall paper, reskimmed and painted a bright warm white, a light jute rug was purchased, and still the space was not quite right. So we took the plunge, brave face on and painted the panelling under the stairs the same colour as the wall. I was dreading it looking aweful, fearful that I would regret it and that I would spend hours the next day sanding it off and hunting to find the correct wood stain. Crying into my sand paper was the image that came to mind! Dramatic I know, but when you have spend so much time deliberating and trying to decide on balance what is the best plan for the house when maintaining its heritage and making it work for us, making a wrong decision can fill you with dread! Fear for the wasted expense, dreading the thought of time wasted, wishing you didn't waste so much brain power deliberating! And here it is, the hallway + gallery wall + painted panelling! All that is left is the stairs carpet and were done! I've received some lovely compliments from you folk online and its really lovely that the internet can bring random people together over something like this! Hope you all like it, there is a series of stories on my Instagram under the Renovation and Hallway tour highlights if you want to have a more in-depth look.
I guess the moral of the story is: take the leap! Don't be afraid to experiment with your space. Nothing ventured, nothing gained! |
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