THE RENOVATION SO FAR: SIMPLE CHILDREN’S BEDROOM
It was just over a month ago that I shared our plans for a Simple Children’s Bedroom for Bailey (if you missed that post you can catch up with those plans here).
We are making really good progress with the renovation so far and I managed to get lots of the preparing and painting done over the Easter holidays. However, things are taking a little longer than I initially thought they would. I underestimated how much work would be involved in decorating a whole room by myself, plus of course I am juggling finishing the room, with work, and looking after Bailey too. It’s slowly coming together but there is still quite a bit to do.
So far I have painted the walls, ceilings and I have now nearly finished most of the wood work (picture rail, skirting boards, window frame, door frame etc). As you can see, the floor is still unfinished.
It took a while to clear her room and set up a camp for her in the back bedroom where she is currently sleeping. This week her bedroom door is being dipped, and maybe once we get that back she’ll be able to go back into her bedroom for a bit, at least until we sort the floor.
We also decided to dip her wardrobe doors. If you’ve been following the renovation along on Instagram stories you will know that when I sanded the doors back the paint started to chip off and peel. We had planned to simply paint over the existing paint, however the finish would have been so poor that our options were to hand-sand back to the wood (which would have taken a really long time), or get them dipped (which will take off all the paint in one go).
Next will come the decision of whether to leave the doors bare wood or paint them white like I was initially going to do. The door frame is of course at the moment white (sanded back) so I guess it will depend on what the doors look like with a painted frame.
So far, it’s been a lot of hard and messy work, so I have been rewarding myself by thinking about some of the decorative details in her room. I have chosen some beautiful linen for her bedding and some linen fabric from The Linen Works to hand make her curtains and this will be paired with a linen black-out blind. I also ordered some wonderful prints from Gemma Koomen. I am so in love with her beautiful illustrations and can’t wait too see them hung on the freshly painted soft pink walls.
The last big thing to sort out is the floor. Finding a radiator needs to be a priority as I won’t be able to finish off the floor until after this is installed as we are also going to move the position of where the radiator is.
We ripped up a very old carpet up quite a while ago and the wooden floor boards that were hiding beneath are actually in pretty good condition. There are about 20 boards that have a strip of really soft, pale green-blue paint down one edge. I really love this colour and how it has worn but it only covers about a foot of the boards at one end.
One of my favourite things about the renovation is uncovering the layers of history that are present in this house. Even when doing something as simple as sanding back the paint on the fireplace, many layers of paint are revealed. I always feel a little torn about which bits to decorate – and by doing so cover up the beautiful decay – and which bits to leave bare and just as they are.
Bailey’s floor looks so unfinished at the moment as it has lots of paint drips, and a few stains etc but I also think it would be a shame to hide this beautiful green colour. Maybe I should take inspiration from what’s there and try to colour match it and paint the rest of the boards.
I also found some beautiful old wallpaper that was lining the shelf in Bailey’s wardrobe with a letter wedged underneath. There was no date on the letter but it was lovely to have a read of it. I am planning on framing a section of the wallpaper and hanging it up in the house somewhere.
This is what still needs to be done with Bailey’s bedroom renovation:
Replace radiator
Paint floor
Hang bedroom door (once stripped)
Hang wardrobe doors (once stripped)
Strip off paint on wardrobe door frame?
Fit light switch and plugs
Fit new ceiling rose and cord for light
Make curtains and hang
Put everything back in her room and style it
On Sunday, I was painting the window frame, my husband was sitting on the landing looking at radiators on his iPad and Bailey was playing with a sticker book – whilst this was a lovely part of our day, I couldn’t help but look forward to when Bailey’s room will be all finished. It’s hard when you lose momentum with a project but I am trying to stay calm and relaxed about it all. It will get done eventually, right? We just need to get over this little hump and then hopefully it will be easy sailing till the end.
You can watch the progress of the renovation so far over on Instagram Stories as I have shared the work I have been doing in a Story Highlight, which you can find on my profile page here.