Here is our living room before (well to be honest part way through because I only remembered to take the picture after we had pulled the sofa and got the dust sheets at the ready!)
We have lived in our home (a new build when we brought it) for 7 years and a lot of the rooms are still magnolia, which, I think is really plain and boring. We had made half an effort with our living room and wallpapered a feature wall a couple of years back. But that is as far as we had got. As with lots of other rooms in the house, cracks had started to show between the ceiling and the coving joins. So first on my list was to ask Craig to kindly fill those cracks.
It was really easy to do, he just used some decorators caulk (we had some spare, so didn't need to buy anymore) and used a decorating gun to press it into the cracks. We then waited a couple of days for it to dry out before painting over it.
Whilst this was drying we painted a couple of tester pots of paint onto various parts of the wall, to see what the 2 colours we had narrowed it down to would look like in different lights. Wanting to keep it close to the flower colour on our wall paper we chose to go with Duck Egg.
So after carefully masking, the areas that needed masking we set to work painting the ceiling and coving white (using paint we already had) and then painting the walls Duck Egg. As the living room is a high traffic area and the children are still young we chose to go for Silk paint. Meaning that it can be wiped clean if necessary.
Next on my list to change the look and feel of the room was to change the blinds for curtains. The blinds looked nice when we moved in, but times have changed and I no longer like them. So I went and found some really nice curtains in the homebase sale. They are a cream colour with brown flowers stitched into the top. So go perfectly with the wallpaper. ?As our house in newish the walls are made of plaster board, which can be a real pain when it comes to hanging things, as the plasterboard is just not strong enough to hold in screws. So here is what we did....
- Measure up and mark out where we were putting the curtain pole. We used a skewer to poke through the screw holes and mark the wall in the correct place.
- Using some Black and Decker hollow fixings, which are specifically designed for plasterboard, Craig hammered them into the wall.
- He then threaded the screw through the curtain pole fixing and screwed that into the hollow fixings. By doing this the hollow fixings would have sprung out from behind, clinging onto the plasterboard and making the curtain pole more secure.?
- Finally, we threaded the curtains onto the pole and placed the pole into the curtain pole fixing.?
We repeated this process to put the curtain holdbacks up.
The final part of our effort to change the look and feel of the room was to put up a picture frame we had been meaning to hang somewhere for a long time. Again, because of the plasterboard walls this does restrict a little. However we have found a really great product that makes hanging pictures really easy!
- Place 4 sets of large damage free hanging strips (they come in packs of 4) onto the back of your frame, two at the very top and the other two 3 quarters of the way down. Pressing down on each one for 30 seconds.
- Measure up and mark exactly where you are going to place your picture.?
- Take the backing off of each strip and carefully place your picture onto the wall. Again, press each one for 30 seconds.
- Stand back and admire how lovely and flat the picture frame looks against your wall!
We also hung a white wooden heart onto the wall in between the window and the wallpaper and I think that looks great.?
Our room now looks like this...
Totally different and really calming. We also turned the sofa around so that it didn't block out so much light (it was against the window). I love that we have made it personal with the photo frame and also that just by putting up some curtains and a lick of paint its made the room look so different!
So this was our total spends:
Curtains ? ? ? ? ?- ?12.42 (These were a bargain as should of been over ?30!)
Curtain pole ? ?- ?6.78
Hollow fixings - ?6.99
2x holdbacks ?- ?7.98
Paint ? ? ? ? ? ? ? - ?11.99
Picture Strips ?- ?3.39
Wicker Heart - ?3.99
Total ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ??53.54
Ok so I came in at ?3.54 over the ?50 budget, but its still an amazing transformation for only just over ?50!! Do I think I have succeeded with the challenge, YES!!! I set out to change the look and feel of the room and we have definitely done that! I feel so much happier sitting in our front room now, its a nice, cozy, welcoming room. Rather than a room that I was quite fed up with and embarrassed about!
Source: http://www.oneblueonepink.com/2013/07/moneysupermarket-home-improvement-hero.html
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন