Tuesday 9 May 2017

Some Small Home Updates

You know when interiors magazine say, "You can jazz up a space with just new cushion covers!" and you think, "Yeah whatever, pull the other one." Turns out they're not lying. Something I've learnt since buying my home is how easy it is to update a room with comparatively tiny changes. 

Prior to moving to this house I'd lived in fourteen places in twelve years: I'd never really had the chance to get tired of a room or flat before it was time to move on. But I've stayed put for almost nine years, which is more than enough time to want to make changes, both big and small. We've just finished renovating our bathroom and I wrote about our kitchen on a budget last year, but it's the little updates that I enjoy the most and today I'm sharing some of them.
Living Room
Something I'm not crazy about in the living room is just how much brown wood there is. In an ideal world, I'd strip and paint the floorboards but just thinking about the dust and mess (and little cat prints on a freshly painted floor) makes me shudder. So I was lucky to find the perfect rug for the space, in simple shades of grey, from my favourite local homewares shop Harriman & Co.

As the living room is at the back of the house it can easily feel dark, so over the past 9 months or so I've collected sunshine yellow accessories to being a welcome pop of colour to the room. I picked up the yellow cushions from Habitat when they were having a discount event, the Hello Sunshine print is from Moonko in Sheffield, the retro-style yellow chair comes from My Furniture, and the vintage floral cushion cover (on grey chair) was from a local charity shop.

Total cost for this room's colourful new look? Chair, cushions and print all came to a total of £120. I've also re-used items where possible - "shop your home" as the fancy interiors bloggers call it - relocating a painted basket IKEA hack from our bedroom and the blue cushions (originally La Redoute) from the spare room, while my beautiful but broken 1960s typewriter sits happily in a corner with some of Thomas's vintage book collection.
Our Bedroom
Our room has always been a space that most reflects my tastes rather than both of ours; it was my pink-toned retreat for years before Thomas moved in and it's been slow to change. The addition of things specific to him - including the bear on a bike print, the custom portrait painted by Laura, and the (in-joke) All I Do Is Win embroidery - plus prints that he's chosen (such as the It's A Wonderful Life poster), and the introduction of teal and yellow as accent colours, are all my attempts to make it feel as much his space as mine.

The geometric cushion covers were a bargain £6 apiece from La Redoute, the Hello Sunshine cushion came from Tesco, while the battery operated string of ball lights are from Tiger and help to pull the different colours in the room together. At a cost of just £27, the room is now a light, bright, colourful space.

22 comments:

  1. A few small changed really can make a big difference! I have enjoyed having a little peek in your lovely home. We are due to get the keys to our first home on Monday (had two fall through last year!) and are so excited about being able to make a home the way we want it at last!

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    1. That is SO exciting! Good luck, you will have so much fun making it your home.

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    2. Thank you...we've been waiting (and saving!) so long, can't believe it's actually happening now, especially after two failed homes last year!

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  2. I love seeing people's homes and yours looks gorgeous! I can't wait until we get our own little space

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    1. Genuinely my fave thing about blogs/Instagram is being nosy at other people's houses!

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  3. Your typewriter is adorable! Actually, your entire living room and bedroom look so cute.
    We currently have nothing on the bedroom walls - not got round to it yet. The piles of books everywhere look familiar though ;-)

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    1. Piles of books maketh the home, as far as I'm concerned. I find it weird when I go to people's houses and they don't have any books.

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  4. Lovely! I totally understand the aversion to dust and mess that sanding would create, I feel like I've only just rid of all the dust from having to have the concrete floor dug up to replace central heating pipes in february. It's so flippin' disruptive. Buying nice cushions and rugs is far more up my street!
    I do have a small paw print on a threshold step after Socks jumped on a newly painted window sill, but I kind love it, it makes me smile.

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    1. We had new windows fitted over a year ago and I STILL find patches of brick dust that have escaped notice for all that time!

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  5. Your house always looks so lovely, and I particularly like all the pops of yellow. It's a colour I'm slowly adding more of into our house; the living room especially.

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    1. It's not a colour I'd have ever thought of using, but it's turned out to be surprisingly versatile and especially handy for darker rooms.

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  6. I do love your home!! So beautiful!! The yellow accents see fab!! You gave such a good eye!!

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  7. All looks amazing! I really like those cushions (though they seem to have gone up in price to £19 each, were they on offer when you bought them? maybe i can find a discount code as the mint ones would really work on my bedroom!) xx

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    1. Off £19 is ridiculous! I think they were £9 when I bought them and then I had a discount code so ended up costing £6 each. Fingers crossed they do another 40% off soon.

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  8. Not gonna lie, I adore having a nosey at other people's houses so this was a joy to read haha! I love what you've done and, really, I'm feeling like I might just want to up and move into your home. It's so pretty! I sometimes get overwhelmed with how we might change things so it's reassuring to see that it doesn't need to be much!

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    1. Thank you! I love having a nosey at people's houses, too.

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  9. I am literally the nosiest person in the world and these posts are right up there with "a day in the life of..." ones. I have loved getting a little peek into your home, especially as I bought my own late last year and it feels so overwhelming. Thanks for sharing!

    S x
    Paper & Lilacs

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    1. House posts and "day in the life" posts are my favourite too, it's the nosey parker in me.

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  10. That cat & book illustration is the BEST. I'm so jealous.

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    1. I bought it from the cat museum in Amsterdam, isn't it brilliant?! The fact it combines Thomas's 3 favourite things - cats, books, and Dutch - makes it even better.

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    2. Now I know where to go if I'm ever in Amsterdam!

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