master-bedroom mini makeover

Do you love your bedroom? I love Baby M's bedroom but it dawned on me a month or so ago that I really didn't like ours. It was gloomy, dowdy and made terrible use of space. We have a very small flat for the three of us, so my dreams of having a clean and spacious bedroom are restricted to the boards of Pinterest for now!

I didn't want to spend a lot on this little makeover, but did want to put some love and attention into our room, and try and de-clutter it just a little. We have so much stuff that is just everywhere in our house, so I was never going to achieve minimalistic elegance, but I am happy with how it turned out all the same.

So, the before shots.... yep, didn't even bother tidying up for photos!!

Okay so the first thing I did was to re-do the wedding paintings. We have our professional photos in cheapo frames because we've not yet been in a position to invest in proper framing, and as we're still moving around a bit, we just wanted to have the photos with us, so are putting up with cheap frames for now. But, they don't have to look quite so dowdy, surely! I searched and searched for some affordable white frames big enough to fit the photos, but was not willing to commit so much money simply on frames, so painted the ones I had.

Before

After

A few coats of white paint later, how much better do they look?? (Is it completely mad that I feel like I am standing up straighter in the second picture??).

The next little project was the bookcase. I bought a cheap one from Argos in the same colour wood as the rest of our furniture, and ordered some fun striped wallpaper to line the back of the bookcase with. I'd seen this done beautifully on Pinterest (where else) and so thought I'd have a go. It was easy to do whilst constructing the bookcase because I could just glue it on in one big clean piece. 

I really feel it lightens the whole bookcase, don't you?? I also covered some boxes that were to go on the bookcase, to try and keep the clean lines as much as I possibly could! I think it helped too!!

So then I painted the mirror a pale gold to match in with the grey and yellow colour scheme. All the wood in our room is a dark chocolate, so the caramel mirror had to go!! 

What else... oh yes, the photos! I wanted some more photos of us with Baby M around our room, but again, didn't want to spend a fortune, so had some enlargements printed on Snapfish, and painted some blank canvas's grey, and tadaaa...

I hated, HATED the bed lights we had clipped onto our old headboard, and so searched high and low for a suitable replacement. I found this gold lamp and just loved it. 

The final item that I purchased was a new bed! It was SUPER cheap, and I sold our old one on ebay, so I only ended up being a little bit out of pocket, but boy does it make a huge difference. We put up with the old one for so long even though it was too big for the mattress and because of the slant of the headboard and size of the bay window, it was terribly space INefficient. We've noticed so much more space at the end of the bed now, and Mr M can actually walk down his side of the bed without kicking his shins. Happy hubs!

And so the finished product is this:

So as you can see, its still quite busy, but its not a complete disaster anymore!! The guitar needs a new home, but for now, on this chair is far enough out of the clutches of bubs, so will be fine. I'd love to hang it on the wall, but that's a project for another day! 

Our room feels lighter, fresher and more organised. I love the grey with the yellow/gold accents. I actually enjoy reading a book in there now, so whenever I put Baby M down for a nap, I rush in there and curl up under the throw and try and get a few pages into a book (aka Pinterest on the iPad). 

So there you have it, that is my makeover of our bedroom! Its been a work in progress over the past month or so, but I'm really happy with how it feels now. It finally feels like a nice space to be in!!