Bedroom – Home Sweet Home

by VioletLeBeaux | Jan 13, 2013 | Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Tutorial

Welcome to the next room in Home Sweet Home: the bedroom!

Read each of the rooms below:

• The original Home Sweet Home post
• Welcome to our Home Sweet Home
• The Living Room
• The Kitchen
• The Hallway
• The Bathroom
• The Laundry
• James’ Area
• Violet’s Vanity Area
• The Bedroom
• What have we learned?

Before and after:

Just the after this time.

I don’t think I have a before photo of the whole bedroom because I never thought it was nice enough to take photo of. Imagine a lot of black though, all of our bed stuff was black and the carpet is a very dark blue so it was basically a light pit.

Photo spam:

From the doorway it now looks so much bigger.

There are no windows but having a similar theme for everything makes it feel a lot less claustrophobic.

My wardrobe has actual organisation and a system for hanging things. Not only that but it’s colour coded and all of the shelves have been decoupaged in the same paper as the door.

The laundry bin is still a personal favorite in this room.

As much as the big cupboards suck for actual storage, I love having the huge mirrors. It really gives a feeling of space.

Another edition of spot the sleeping puppy XD

My make up area has been compressed and organised. Organisation for the win!

You can also see the ruffle for the bed here that I made from the princess curtains I had in the lounge..

Everything in the house has been themed pink and green as much as possible. Flowers are a big inspiration, I want it to always be Spring here no matter the season!

The new bedspread.

The wallpaper on the doors fits the theme without being too overpowering.

James’ bedside table:

My bedside table.

It’s the little details that tie it in together like that I painted our cord holders with nail polish to match.

Background information:

I have a love hate relationship with our bedroom. I want to love it but the carpet makes me hate it. It’s so dark that the bedroom seems like a total sink hole for light. I can’t do anything much about that other than putting rugs down so for now it’s something I have to live with. So I did my best to brighten the rest of the room using better linen, covering all of the black shelves and painting everything I could white. I covered up all of the glass so there was a bit more privacy and also brighten it even more. I reused the curtains I made as a ruffle to cover the bottom of the mattress, it was a bit sad to cut them up but I feel like it fits better and I still have the second one to do something else with.

The biggest problem I have with this room is the cupboard. The person that designed this cupboard has never used a cupboard in their lives. Out of the 3 doors only 1/2 of them is really useable space because the left side opens to a wall and the right side is too small to fit coat hangers in -_-‘ This is a massive pain as it means clothes really need to be stored out in the bedroom taking up more space. What it did do was make me think outside the box. I installed thin shelves in the cupboards so I could keep things we don’t use often in there and give James’ clothes a separate space so he could get them more easily. The things there now actually have a place and boxes to make the storage easy.

Everything is now bright and airy. Well as airy as a room with no actual windows can be ^_^ It feels like a relaxing place to live and sleep. I love going to bed at night. I find it so nice to lay in bed and read now where as before living in clutter and darkness it didn’t feel relaxing at all. I think that this room really is the epitome of what I was trying to achieve with this project. It IS my home sweet home.

Changes made:

• Painted the side tables
• New bed linen
• Painted the vanity/completely reorganised that area
• Decoupaged the shelves
• Changed the shelf configuration
• Organised and painted the bed side tables
• Made a bedhead
• Made a ruffle for the bottom of the bed
• Covered the walls with new paper
• Polished the mirrors
• Reorganised the cupboards and added shelving
• Moved James’ clothes to their own spot in the cupboard

Still to be done:

• Buy more storage boxes from Daiso for the inside of the cupboard
• Think of a way to cover the carpet to something brighter

Final thoughts:

This is the last room in our apartment and so it’s the last day you’ll be seeing the reveals. I think this room is the perfect way to end the series as it really embodies the concept of Home Sweet Home. It was hard work and I had to think very creatively to make this room work but I love it. It works for me and more importantly it works for us as a couple. I love our bedroom and I’m so proud of the work we’ve done and the fact that doing it together has brought us closer together.

Bonus progress photos:

Spray painting the end tables was a real challenge as we don’t just have a back yard to do this kind of thing in! I ended up having to create a massive box to house the tables in then open the doors and point the fan up the top to prevent spray back and the fumes from killing us XD   Ingenuity!   Silly but it worked like a charm. My favorite part of the bedroom was changing the covers. We bought this set from Target after a long discussion over which would look best.     The change from black to white was such a big thing! Thank you helper James for putting it all together!   I ended up turning the matching pillows into the headboard too so that worked out really well.     The old clothing racks were all over the place and really didn’t stand up well XD     So I decided to pull it all apart and start from scratch.  This gave me a chance to go through things and decide what I really LOVED and what could be packed away or given to charity. If it wasn’t going to be worn a lot it didn’t go back on the racks.   I also colour coded all of the clothes which really helped with making it look organised. This was all before I took the shelves apart and re organised them all. Make sure you come back tomorrow for the last instalment: What Have We Learned!

Violet’s Vanity Area – Home Sweet Home

by VioletLeBeaux | Jan 12, 2013 | Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Tutorial

Welcome to the next room in Home Sweet Home: Violet’s make up area!

Read each of the rooms below (links updated as I post):

• The original Home Sweet Home post
• Welcome to our Home Sweet Home
• The Living Room
• The Kitchen
• The Hallway
• The Bathroom
• The Laundry
• James’ Area
• Violet’s Vanity Area
• The Bedroom
• What have we learned?

Before and after:

More brightness here, this is the most cluttered area in the apartment but it’s starting to come together and match so it’s less obvious.

I think this is the area I worked on the most as it required me to completely redo the dresser.

Photo spam:

This is definitely the pinkest area of the apartment, it’s also where I film my videos so it’s good to get me in the mood for it haha!

Jewellery is now organised on some little displays from Daiso. I have since added a section to this for earrings.

The good part of this area is that I can dump jewellery very easily and it doesn’t look too bad because it’s all fairly similar.

The new matching eyelash holder.

Make up 😀

I love my stool now but I totally hate the carpet. I just need enough time to crochet an entire new carpet 😉

Background information:

I love this vanity so much. In fact it’s been the subject of so many posts on the blog you’d probably know that already! My mum gave this vanity to me years ago and we had it in our old house too. When we moved down I couldn’t bring it but James’ parents were nice enough to bring it down for us with his double bass. I was so glad to have it back! Unfortunately the colour just didn’t work with what I was doing so I had to do some rethinking.

Changes made:

• Painted vanity
• Covered stool
• Removed shelves
• Cleared off everything and started the reorganisation from scratch
• Added all of the accessories
• Changed lighting set up
• Added new eyelash storage
• Added new accessory storage

Still to be done:

• Work out better storage on top of the shelves for large palettes
• Think about best way to have a backdrop permanently up

Final thoughts:

I love my vanity. I love it even more now it reflects my personality. The only problem I have is that it gets messy very easily. It’s the area that I tend to dump things in when I’m in a hurry. When I get home at night I dump all of my jewellery there because I’m too tired to put it away and that’s not ok. I think changing from a messy person to a neat person happens in degrees, you can’t just change overnight. I’ve made great progress at it so far because the new house design actually encourages me to put things in their places but the vanity is the one area left that’s a little tough to do because it’s so full of tiny things in a small area. It is happening though. I am becoming less lazy, I want to keep things tidy and I’ve noticed my priorities changing over the last year to reflect that. This area is my second favorite in the house (the special flower place in the lounge being my favorite), it’s very “me”. Every time I sit down here to do my make up I feel happy and that’s the whole point of the Home Sweet Home project. It’s a fantastic feeling when you can look at a before photo and know it’s never going back to that again!

Bonus progress photos:

You’ve already seen a lot of vanity photos on the blog at various times but here are a few of them again as a reminder of how far it’s come!     The stool after it was recovered.   After moving it over to the other side of the bedroom. Unfortunately as we moved everything around in the cupboards and around the house it became even more cluttered.   It was at that point I decided to paint it.   Much prettier!     And then I cluttered it right up again XD Make sure you come back tomorrow for the next instalment: the bedroom!

James’ Area- Home Sweet Home

by VioletLeBeaux | Jan 11, 2013 | Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Tutorial

Welcome to the next room in Home Sweet Home: James’ area!

Read each of the rooms below (links updated as I post):

• The original Home Sweet Home post
• Welcome to our Home Sweet Home
• The Living Room
• The Kitchen
• The Hallway
• The Bathroom
• The Laundry
• James’ Area
• Violet’s Vanity Area
• The Bedroom
• What have we learned?

Before and after:

This will always be a boys area so it’s never going to be pink and pretty but it’s well organised and not another light hole now!

Before the work James had a massive set of black selves for his photography stuff. It wasn’t ideal as we couldn’t find anything because it was so fat, plus his black shelves held black gear. His desk was also very unorganised. Photo spam:

James tends to keep his things in small piles so I think I might get him a little box or something to keep them in.

At least as time goes by he’s replacing his old broken things with nice things!

The two main things he keeps are photography things and music things.

The photography stuff now has a better set of shelves which don’t take up as much space. You may recognise them from the original food area!

Of course there are still some cute touches. This is from the first time we ever took purikura together 😀

The top of the mini fridge holds Lottie’s things. Since taking these photos I’ve moved her things to inside the cupboard and I’m working on another flower arrangement to keep here.

Background information:

James’s desk takes up a lot of room in our living area but it’s a very important part of the house. Without it I couldn’t bug him to take photos of me XD His requirements for our houses are always that he needs a decent desk and a place to store his photography stuff. In an apartment it’s a bit harder to put that into action without a separate room for it, especially because he likes to watch tv from his desk! The layout we have at the moment works reasonably well for this as he can see around his computer and there’s a space for shelves. It would be nice if we could switch his desk out to a much smaller one so we might be able to turn it sideways and reclaim the space he’s not using. I didn’t want to do too much here because it’s James’ space but the changes we did carry out actually did make a difference to brighten the whole room.

Changes made:

• Shelves swapped
• Desk covered with a table cloth
• Desk reorganised

Still to be done:

• Better more comfortable (and less ugly) chair
• Smaller desk
• Paint shelving

Final thoughts:

I don’t think this area was ever going to be cute and girly, it’s James’ area after all and he’s not exactly in love with the idea of daisies covering his computer monitor XD That said having the table cloth really brightens the room up. Hiding the black photography gear in the shelves works well and the only improvement I could think there would be to either paint them or have a door so they are hidden entirely. All in all as long and James is happy with it so am I!

Bonus progress photos:

This is from when I changed the shelves out, notice the lovely model who kind of looks like he’s trying to flirt with the camera XD

  The desk was given to us by SuperKawaiiMama and it’s served very well these last few years but I think it’s time to get something smaller which we can turn around. Make sure you come back tomorrow for the next instalment: Violet’s Area!

The Laundry – Home Sweet Home

by VioletLeBeaux | Jan 10, 2013 | Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Tutorial

Welcome to the next room in Home Sweet Home: the laundry!

Read each of the rooms below (links updated as I post):

• The original Home Sweet Home post
• Welcome to our Home Sweet Home
• The Living Room
• The Kitchen
• The Hallway
• The Bathroom
• The Laundry
• James’ Area
• Violet’s Vanity Area
• The Bedroom
• What have we learned?

Before and after:

I didn’t actually think to take any before photos of this because I didn’t think I would be doing anything with it! And really there wasn’t that much done in here.

Photo spam:

Background information:

The laundry tends to be another dumping ground. We used to keep dirty clothes ready to be washed in the sink until we discovered that it was leaking and causing things to mould *_* That was actually a blessing in disguise as it made me get organised and clean it up a bit more. When we got Lottie we needed a place to keep all of her things which was out of the way but still easy to get to and this was the most logical place. I added the shelving to give us some more space but to be honest it needs even more shelving now it’s full of Lottie’s junk!

Changes made:

• Shelves added
• Reorganised everything
• Shoe organiser added for the bottles

Still to be done:

• Needs some kind of decoration
• Maybe decorating the washing machine
• Turn the top of the washer into an ironing board
• Paint/decoupage shelves
• Find a better place for the shopping cart
• Maybe find more shelves to put over the sink for Lottie’s things

Final thoughts:

This is probably the room that still needs the most work. It’s really not even a room, it’s just a cupboard in the bathroom but I don’t want to leave any stone unturned in this house. Because it’s out of site, it tends to be a bit out of mind but I want to enjoy opening the door and having to do washing. I hate washing so it would be nice to be able to open it up and smile at how pretty it is!

Bonus progress photos:

Again I didn’t take any because I didn’t do much here XD

Make sure you come back tomorrow for the next instalment: James’ area!

The Bathroom – Home Sweet Home

by VioletLeBeaux | Jan 9, 2013 | Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Tutorial

Welcome to the next room in Home Sweet Home: the bathroom!

Read each of the rooms below (links updated as I post):

• The original Home Sweet Home post
• Welcome to our Home Sweet Home
• The Living Room
• The Kitchen
• The Hallway
• The Bathroom
• The Laundry
• James’ Area
• Violet’s Vanity Area
• The Bedroom
• What have we learned?

Before and after:

Totally bright!

Before it was very white but also very cluttered.

Photo spam:

The pretty mirrors on the doors 😀

I love the Cristina Re butterfly paper.

The flower vase suits the bathroom a lot more than it did the living room!

I think this area needs a little more organising as it’s gotten messy after moving some more make up in here. I’m going to buy some cute little containers from Daiso to keep it all out of the way.

The vase is full of memorable things. James found me this peacock feather the first time we ever visited the Zoo on Billy Idol Day 😀

I love my repurposed MOR containers.

I made a new little door stop by filling a candy container with rice and putting pretty fabric around it.

Background information:

When we inspected the property to decide if we wanted to rent it, the bathroom was locked shut from the inside and so we couldn’t see it. We applied anyway because we were pretty desperate at the time and this was the nicest place we’d seen so far. Rental competition was very high at the time and we were lucky that it was raining and the agent was 30 minutes late so almost everyone else gave up and went home before the inspection even started. Fast forward to when we actually got the keys and a locksmith had opened the bathroom up. I was so surprised and happy at how nice and big it was! Big is definitely relative, it’s much smaller than our last places but it was still the biggest we’d seen in a city apartment. Unfortunately I covered my nice pretty modern bathroom with a bunch of bathroom junk XD That’s the problem with pretty modern houses, they look great until you put stuff in them! So I’ve had to find a medium between the white and the pink clutter!

Changes made:

• Removed all of the stuff on the walls and accessories to put elsewhere
• Rearranged everything and removed things which were not suitable for the bathroom
• Added the big mirror (we found it in the trash)
• Added flowers
• Added shelves to the shower

Still to be done:

• Possibly something to decorate the shower more?
• Matching towels
• Add some more flowers to fill out the bunch

Final thoughts:

The bathroom didn’t need a lot of work, it just needed some thought and for me to stop being so lazy. It’s got a great base and in my dream house this is the styling I would probably choose. I like plain things which can then be embellished to whatever you feel like afterwards and then changed depending on taste and mood. I’ve always liked my bathroom here but now I love it.

Bonus progress photos:

The day we moved in:

The first time I tried to do some decorating:

After getting the big mirror it just looked even more cluttered but it was the accessories which were the problem not the mirror. Lucky because I love the mirror!

The next version where we were thinking “minimalist”. It didn’t last long!

Make sure you come back tomorrow for the next instalment: the Laundry!