Moving home

After 10 years of renting we have recently moved to our new home. Previously the house was a mess - it was built 10 years ago, and had been rented out to a group of guys (!).  Needless to say, it needed a complete revamp.

 

As I am an Interior Designer by profession, I was super excited to be able to apply my skills and to finally design my own home. We didn't have a lot of cash to buy expensive staff for our home, so I tried to incorporate what we already owned into the new design scheme. I also customised some of the furniture to go with the new design

 

I have to admit here, I enjoy the process of customising/up-cycling furniture. I remember when we bought our bed and for a while couldn't find the matching bedside lockers (there was no Ikea in Ireland at the time), eventually what I did was I bought two lockers in the Harvey Norman big sale at 35 euro each! Although the colour was not what I needed (mid brown) and the drawer handles were very basic and simple, the lockers were very well made of real wood. I sanded the lockers down, applied dark brown varnish, changed the knobs and I ended up with exactly what I needed :

 

I also repainted an old wardrobe - shelving unit in my daughter's bedroom, which was very ugly and didn't go (obviously) with the rest of the room. It wasn't easy, because the wardrobe is made of laminate and I spent many hours painting it - first I sanded it down with fine sanding paper, then applied couple of layers of primer and a couple of layers of paint - the result speaks for itself:

                                            This is how it used to look:

                                                 This is how it looks now:

                  




 I also customised an IKEA chest of drawers, which previously had been used in the hallway (in my old rented home), - it looks quite nice in my bedroom now:

                                                            Before:

 

                                                                After (on the right):

To keep the spending down (we spent a lot on the general upgrades, like electricity, gas, insulation, windows) I have sewn some of my curtains and cushions myself. E.g.: This curtain in the kitchen office area was sewn using fabric bought online from the US:

The fabric on cushions was bought on Ebay and is by Designers Guild:

My daughter loves her new bunting. The fabric is by Liberty London:

The whole proces was quite stressful, but also a joyfull experience. When I saw my designs come to life - it was so rewarding and worth every penny and sleepless night.