My house is my sanctuary, which every now and again needs a bit of a spruce up. At the moment it's my study that needs a little TLC. It's been a bit neglected for a while so this year it's getting a bit of lift. I also think my tastes have changed a little since the last time I decorated it properly.
To start with, my study is quite a small room, it's meant to be my writing/working at home haven; a dedicated space to work. A couple of years ago I bought my desk which I love, it's solid wood and reminds me of the desks you see in old movies or period dramas. So the theme for this room will fit in generally with the look of my desk.
I looked through the Houz app which I do find kick starts my interior design creativity and I watched some of the home design videos of my favourite vloggers such as Fleur De Force, Alexandrea Garza, Viviannadoesmakeup etc.
I settled on the following key aspects I wanted to incorporate in my design;
So first things first, I have a rather small budget to achieve a new look. The major part of the budget is the wallpaper. For this room it'll take approximately five rolls. Just after Christmas I started looking through wallpaper shops. I collected samples, and found that predominantly I was looking for a cream/gold colour to add warmth to the room. I also hunted about for a designer paper in the sales to maximise my budget. I found most of the papers I liked were around £15 per role on average. I lived with several different swatches on the wall to see which appealed and fitted in for me the most. Then when I visited a retail park recently they had opened a new wallpaper shop, so in I went.
I found a beautiful cream/gold damask print with a hint of glitter and it was in the sale for £10 per role. The sales assistant was great and gave me a sample, however there were only three roles available in the shop. This is where the sales assistant came in to her own, checking their website she found it available and in stock to order on line at a further discounted price which would bring it down to £7.50 per role. Who doesn't love a bargain, I have now purchased a wallpaper which matches my theme, well within budget and saving over £200 on the original price.
Once I had the paper I could make a start on the room, so for the past few days with the help of my mam we have stripped the old paper, painted the wood work and ceiling so the room currently looks like this;
Now, there is one last paint job to do which has took a little thinking about, as this room is above the stair case, I have what can only be described as a box built in to hide the rise of the stairs. So I have decide to paint the top of this with a gold leaf colour.
Once this is done, the papering begins. Now this isn't a large room so it took me about a day to do this. The worst bit for me it papering round a window. But once done and left to dry the paper looks gorgeous!
Now I could start on the Furniture and accessories.
Furniture wise I currently have a large storage unit which doesn't fit my theme, so I'm acquiring a display cabinet and sideboard which will open up the room and allow me to display some artwork and some of my keepsakes.
My desks moved back in first and is in it's new position and ready for me to start work again,
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| Original Desk - purchased from Costco (2014) |
As I'm a writer I have my original Silver Reed typewriter on which I learned to touch type, my letter rack with personalised stationary and my wax seal. I also have a million note books but this leather cover one is a particular favourite with my parker pencil for when I need to make notes.
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| Up Cycled Side Board & accessories |
I purchased a new light fitting and lamp from The Range, as well as my heavily brocaded curtain panels which complete the look.
I have a collection of keepsakes from my Grandfather which are amazingly precious to me so I wanted a way to display these items so I could feel like he's with me when I'm working. I decided to use a set of three floating shelves which now hold my keepsakes.
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| Grandad's Keepsakes |
I also have other items to display which are now kept in two upcycled display cabinets with lights for those darker evenings.
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| Up Cycled Units |
And Finally I added a Mirror to give the room depth and two matching picture frames which hold the covers from two of my novels. The frames I had stored in my loft and the mirror I moved from elsewhere in my home.
| Mirror and frames I already had elsewhere |
So this is my new study, hopefully I will be getting lots of work done now!
