Friday 26 June 2015

Spare room makeover


My concept board and picks of accessories.


In my last post, I showed you how an amazing feature wall, created by making a photo into wall paper through wallpapered, can be a great starting point when deciding on a room design...
In this post I will tell you all a bit more about my concept and design for our previously bland and uninspiring spare room....

Above you can see my concept design for the room makeover, featuring that amazing custom made wall paper that I designed, using my friend Kristine Scott's amazing coastal photograph, and below you can see how the room used to look:


When we bought the house 3 years ago, it was OK....livable, but only OK, not to my taste, decor wise!
It had some great features, and as they say "good bones", but was rather bland and unadventurous!
The last room in the house still reminding me of it's previous state, the spare room, was not the worst offender: With a rather nice fireplace feature and a perfectly unoffensive lilac color on the walls it has not been top of my priorities....
....but aside from housing guests, it's uses has been limited and it has ended up becoming the dumping ground in the house: The room where everything I didn't need or want around was stored, and I would shut the door and forget about it!
Hands up who else has a room like this in their home!

With that gorgeous pixilated image covering the entire wall where the bed is, I am making a BIG artistic statement in here, and really setting the scene for the room. 
That wall paper is the STAR of this makeover, so everything else is going to have to compliment it in a very subtle way!

As with all the other floors upstairs in our home, I've decided to paint it white. (See my tutorial on how to paint wooden flooring to see how) And I was lucky to already have a tin of paint (Leftover from when I did my daughter, Mia's room makeover) that was a good match to the top of the image on the wall paper.

So the makeover is already under way, and I've actually finished painting the room.
Now I need to add all those little things that make a room come together:






Another important part of this room design, is to keep accessories to the minimum .
This will also help not to steal any thunder from the feature wall, and prevent the room from looking too busy and cluttered!
But this does not mean that the accessories is any less important:
For the mood board, above, I've carefully chosen some simple, but fun and well designed pieces that will help me set the tone for that relaxing atmosphere that I want to create:

I've been lusting after the Z1 cotton lamp by Nelson Sepulveda for ages now, but unfortunately it is way out of my budget, so , in true Nostalgiecat style: Expect a DIY option to this coming on the blog soon.

The paint color, Crown Seldom Seen, is a calm, almost white pale grey, and I love it!

When the lovely people at Lighting majestic contacted me to see if I wanted to choose a light to do a product review of, I literally spent days perusing their huge selection of lights....When I came across the Blyton range by DAR , I fell in love: The pale wood, with the unusual tree-like design and the "old- fisherman's-metal-pendant-style" shades I instantly knew that the Blyton floor lamp  was the perfect choice for my new-look spare room! It had just the right amount of  hint of seaside about it!!

I know that the Ombre-effect is out of trend now, but I am not one for slavishly following trends, and I may DIY some curtains like these, as I feel this effect will perfectly compliment my scheme!

Another top of my lust list, is the string pocket shelving. I am really trying to stretch my budget for these, but I've got a feeling I may have to find a suitable compromise here...

I already own one of these House doctor natural baskets, and plan to use it to house a green plant to brighten the interiors with! "Shopping your own home" and reusing things you've already got, in a new space or maybe even in a new way, is a great way to change up your interiors when the budget is tight!

Another top of my wishlist, has been this gorgeous round ,brass House Doctor mirror  , and I was lucky enough to get one sent to me from one of my favorite online shops, Not On The High Street...
I love the simplicity of the design and think it will look fantastic in the room!

That's it!
Simple and calm...
Apart from the odd decorative accessory, maybe a plant or two, I don't feel like this room will need much more that this, as I want that wallpaper to be the star attraction....and the less stuff that's in there, the more calming and inviting the space will feel.
But I am turning the old boiler cupboard into a book shelf, so that I can keep my reading material readily available when I get a moment to retreat into this room for some relaxation!

Tuesday 23 June 2015

Creating a feature wall....

Make your own wallpaper

I am redecorating our spare bedroom!
It is the last room in our home ( well apart from the bathroom....but that's a job for the pro's I think) that has not yet had the Nostalgiecat treatment!

I've  decided to give this room more of a purpose....with a creative makeover that will give it the WOW factor!
I want to turn it into a calming retreat, where I can curl up with a book and take a breather, AND provide overnight guests with a comfortable and beautiful place to stay!

I'm not usually one for overtly themed rooms, but with this room, I want to create a calm and fresh atmosphere, drawing on my Scandinavian coastal roots.

A great starting point when coming up with a room design for a makeover, is a feature of some sort....I love starting with art : this helps me determine both color scheme and the look and feel of a space!
And building on my recent obsession of displaying art in my home, I decided that I wanted to make a BIG statement on the wall behind the bed (which is staying in the room until the budget allows for an update)....

So, when my very talented photographer friend, Kristine Scott posted this picture (below) she had taken of waves crashing in on the shore of Norway, locally to where I am from, I got in touch with her straight away, and she kindly agreed to let me borrow her image for this project.


I love the colors and the movement in this photograph, and I just know it is going to be perfect for the look and feel I am after for the spare room!
You can see more of Kristine Scott's beautiful coastal photography on her Flickr page, and she also makes the most amazing nature inspired silver jewelry, that you can purchase here.

So , armed with this beautiful image, but not knowing how to transfer it onto the wall... I was over the moon when the lovely people at wallpapered contacted me, proposing a collaboration. It was as though it was meant to be, and we decided to turn the image into wall paper to cover the wall behind the bed in it's entirety!

If you have been reading Nostalgiecat for a while, and followed my recent series of posts on Displaying art in your home ( here, here and here) you will know that in my opinion art is the number one ingredient to a personal home....and nothing makes a more confident statement than huge art, and covering an entire wall with artwork in the form of wall paper has to be the ultimate commitment to your personal tastes!

As much as I loved Kristine's image of the waves, I decided I wanted a slightly more painterly effect.  So I used Lunapic, a free online image editing tool, to play with the image, and decided to pixelate the it, so that it will be more like an abstract piece of art, like below:


I also mirrored the image, so that the bed will not cover it too much, and lose some of the expression ...
After having played around with the image in this way and decided on the effect I wanted to create, I uploaded the original high resolution file of the image using make your own wallpaper.
Then I emailed my pixilated image design to the design team at wallpapered, who then worked with me to create the effect I was after, to turn it into a wall paper.

You can upload any image you'd like, as long as it is a high resolution file, and by using make your own wallpaper you can even see a preview of what it's going to look like.

 The design team at Wallpapered is very helpful and will work with you to get the best result possible, regardless of whether you want an effect, like I did, or not, to create the perfect feature wall for your home!

 There is also the option of searching their photolia gallery for over 1 million images ready to use to create your very own wall paper, should you not have an image of your own, as well as a wast array of  wall murals, like brick-effects and maps.



Here's a BEFORE picture of the wall in question:




With that gorgeous pixilated image covering the entire wall where the bed is, I am making a BIG artistic statement in here, and really setting the scene for the room.
Here's a concept board I've put together to show you how it's going to look in the room:


With the custom wall paper making such a huge, artistic statement in the room, I have chosen to keep the color scheme quite neutral, and the accessories to a minimum....but more on that in my next post.
I am currently just waiting for my wall paper to arrive, and I can't wait to get it up on the wall.
Then I will tell you all about my experience of putting it up, before showing you all the final result!
So stay tuned to follow this makeover!
By the way! 
 Have you entered my giveaway competition to
Win an Eames ESW style chair yet??
Head on over to my  post here to enter!
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