BACK TO SCHOOL BEDROOM MAKEOVER WITH WAYFAIR

I've been really excited to share this collaboration as it involves some of my favourite activities...interior design, styling and a bedroom makeover! Yep ever since we told the kiddo he was going to be a big brother he's been asking to change his bedroom from a 'playroom' to a 'big boy room' and with him fast approaching Year 2 at school – eek – we thought it would be a fab idea to surprise him. So when Wayfair asked me to create a Back to School Bedroom Makeover the timing couldn't have been more perfect! Wayfair is definitely one of my go to online stores as it offers a broad range of homeware for every room in the house at a great value, including a great kids' range full of unique finds, just look at this bed!

MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR SPARE ROOM WITH THIS DIY WALL HANGING

I love entertaining at home, having friends and family come over to stay and enjoying the space I’ve created. Currently we rent a two bedroom flat and I always dream of having a spare bedroom for guests to stay over in comfort, but until then we tend to room swap, letting guests stay in our bedroom or using an air mattress in the lounge (not so ideal). However I wanted create a cosy corner that is beautiful, functional and welcomes our guests.

MY BEDROOM DESIGN BIG REVEAL WITH MAGNETIC PLASTER // PART THREE

It's been a long time coming but I can finally share my finished bedroom design big reveal with you and I am so excited to hear what you think! A little while back I was asked to design a space in our house using Thistle Magnetic Plaster from the British Gypsum's Rooms Made For You range and as our bedroom was a major dumping ground, I decided to create a dream space for us to enjoy. As you can see from the before pictures we hadn't done much to the room since we moved into our rented flat and it was generally filled with mix match furniture, stacks of stuff and general clutter.

MY BEDROOM DESIGN WITH MAGNETIC PLASTER // PART TWO

So you might remember from this post that we've been in the progress of doing a bedroom make over and installing some very exciting Thistle Magnetic Plaster from British Gypsum's Rooms Made For You range. After a few weeks of decluttering, ebaying, window shopping and a recovering kiddo, we've finally been able to get the plasterers in to apply the Thistle Magnetic Plaster *whoop*.

I rang around for a few quotes before deciding to go with a local tradesman D& J Plastering after they were recommended by a friend. What I hadn't been planning on was the crazy layers/years worth of paint on top of wallpaper! Eek. This meant that the walls had to be stripped first and taped before they could apply the plaster.



Thankfully it came off relatively easy and they got straight to work, priming the wall with this rather cool colour before mixing up the bags for the main event. The guys did a great job of sorting the wall out considering what a bad state it was in and they didn't even mind me snapping away over their shoulders.

The Thistle Magnetic Plaster is installed just the same as standard plaster, but to be in the safe side I sent they guys this information on it and the super handy video tutorial. They decided to do a 5mm coat rather than a 3mm as this apparently will make the magnetic power of he wall stronger, so I'm getting really excited about my final plans for the wall.


Rather than drying a typical powder pink this plaster goes on a dark grey colour and dries to a light grey, which is perfect for those of you who love the industrial look and are feel a little lazy when it comes to painting. However as I plan to go down the pale pink route and with me having no plaster knowledge at all, I'm glad they instructed me to use a part water white emulsion paint as a first coat once it's dried to seal the wall, before going full steam ahead with my colour.

I've had lots of fun sourcing bits and pieces – the Tiger store has been an amazing place to find bargains for the room – and I was thankful to talk to First4Magnets who were really helpful and giving advice on what type of magnets would work best on light fittings for the wall. They also make a great magnet selection pack with everything you need to get creative! I've been playing around with some of their strong magnets to attach some shelves to the wall *yay*.

So what have I been buying? One of the first things on my list was a Rubber Plant – I know right? Priorities ;) – I have been desperate to get one for a while and I knew that this would look great and give me the botanical vibe I was after.

I also received some large scale amazing prints c/o the fabulous online store Juniqe, here's a sneak peek at the large botanical leaf and palm spring skies prints. They are soooo cool I can't wait to show you when they're up on the wall.

We also decided to sell a few items of furniture in our room such as the: low side chest of drawers, tall chest of drawers, the random wooden box and washing basket, F's old ride on car and the even the Bed frame! We then used the money from to replace the furniture and keep in line with my bedroom makeover mood board, especially a new bed as ours was super old and in a bad state.

Now that the plaster is dry I've finally gotten down to finalising a colour to go up on the wall! I'm working with the wonderful Farrow & Ball and have fallen head over heels with Pink Ground, I can't wait to start painting, revamping some existing pieces and start styling the room. It's been so much fun and I can't wait to show you the results.

Have you got any interior make over plans?

*This post is brought to you in collaboration with British Gypsum.

MY BEDROOM DESIGN WITH MAGNETIC PLASTER // PART ONE

You've probably read on more than one occasion, me sighing at the state of our bedroom. As soon as one corner is neatly displayed and totally instagram worthy, the rest immediately looks like a bomb has dropped due to it being our go-to dumping ground. But that is all going to change! Spring is in the air and the lovely people at British Gypsum have asked me to bare all *eek* and show you the reality of our space, so that I can design my bedroom using the Thistle Magnetic Plaster from the British Gypsum's Rooms Made For You range, and create the space I've always wanted. *Hurrah*

Using Magnetic Plaster in our bedroom make over is so exciting in terms of the flexibility it will create in the space, think movable prints, office mood boards, interesting lighting ideas, and oh my love of green babies hanging from wall planters *all the heart eyes*. After taking a little look at the British Gypsum's Inspiration Page and seeing how other people have used the wall to add shelves, create galleries and more, I was very keen to get started and begin my design.

As our bedroom is weirdly the largest room in the house, this certainly feels like a daunting task, but it's exactly the kick in the pants we needed to get on top of a space that is slowly growing out of control. For us the lack of storage plays a major part in things being stored/left lying around the room, creating a cluttered and chaotic space. So the first thing on the agenda is a good old fashioned spring clean.

OUR BEDROOM BEFORE

Ah the shame, it feels a little eek showing you the messy corners of our home, the ones that I like to hide away from the world, BUT I know it will feel good when I can compare these photos to the completed project and see the hard work pay off. So here goes, this is our room snapped just as it is.

The guy side, yep this is Paul's side of the bedroom and to be honest he is certainly the tidiest out of the two of us! So as you can see the wall has cracks where our current plaster is old and tired, the broken bottom drawer means we can't close the Ikea unit that is bursting with files and papers and desperately needs sorting through *a mega job in itself*, there's wires peeking from under the bed and a general dumping of mags and papers. Actually compared to my desk at the moment this is practically dreamy. 

So here is my own instalife verses real life, you can see here a small corner of the mantelpiece that I've styled, but in reality the mantle is full of random bits and pieces, the floor has F's bag of toys, a toy car that he has outgrown and a random vase that seems to have been left out *hand up to that one*. 

So here is the start of the mess, oh yes this is me and my small world of clutter. My clothes are spilling out of the drawers and they don't close properly, there are SO many prints stacked because I can't commit to hanging them as I change my mind so often *hello magnetic plaster wall*, an old bathroom wooden storage box full of baby clothes and general mess. Now on to the desk....

Oh how I dream of a minimalist desk space, functional, beautiful and pinterest worthy. Instead I have a huge desk perfectly situated to get all the light, but overflowing with stuff and taking up a lot of floor space. The one thing you can't see here is our rental curtains, they are brown and oh so ugly and I can't wait to replace them with something like this or this. 

INSPIRATION

Whenever I have to design or plan a space the first thing I do is envisage the final look and work backwards from there. So for me making a moodboard is a must, I've been pouring over Pinterest for ideas and trying to pull a look together that will work well in the space and feel like us. Here's what I came up with: a mix of pale colours, cool features prints, interesting wall lights, rubber plant and succulents, big mirrors and interesting magazine storage. What do you think of my bedroom design board?

DESIGN IDEA
So I've decided to use the Magnetic Plaster on the wall behind the bed in the hopes we can easily display some cool prints, which we change depending on our mood. My other idea is to create some statement lighting either side of the bed like this stunning home make over from Cup of Jo, the lights in this bedroom are amazing! In theory any metal light casing can be held in place with the magnetic strips onto the plaster, meaning no need for nails or screws! Genius.

GETTING STARTED

This is the bit that has probably been the most daunting, as the amount of sorting and clearing of our accumulated stuff is an epic task. So I thought I'd list all the bits and pieces we have to do before we can move onto the next step of installing the plaster. In no particular order we need to:

• Empty and sort through drawers on Paul's side of the bed.
• Dismantle Paul's bedside unit
• Donate unwanted prints.
• Sell wooden storage box.
• Vacuum pack F's baby clothes and store at my folks.
• Go through clothes, wardrobe and shoes and donate any unworn/unwanted items.
• Sell F's old toy car.
• Declutter desk and file papers.
• Order some colour samples for the wall
• Book the plasterer.

In term of colour and products I've been looking at pulling together some pieces from my favourite brands and I can't wait to share with you my progress in a few weeks time in the next blog post instalment. I'm excited to be working with British Gypsum on this renovation project and you can find out more about their Magnetic Plaster here.

If you fancy checking out some bedroom inspiration you can head over to my Interior Sleep in Style board here. Have you ever taken on a room makeover? I'd love to hear of any space saving tips and tricks and I'll mention the best in my vlog in my next bedroom design post.

*This post is brought to you in collaboration with British Gypsum.