Shades of Blue ...

I am not normally a fan of blue it has to be said but lately I seem to be drawn to it. Not just any old blue you understand but pale blue in particular. It all started when I started collecting wallpaper samples to make a patchwork wall in my bedroom. For some reason I was drawn to the blues ... it may be down to the fact that there wasn't much choice in my local DIY stores ... or maybe I do like blue after all. Either way, I decided to paint the walls leading upstairs.

We don't have a hall as such. You open the front door and there are the stairs in front of you and up you go. We also live in a terraced house and are the third house in a row of four and so we don't have much light leading upstairs just the bit from the front door. Bearing this in mind I chose a duck egg blue. As usual it's always darker than on the tin but I do love it anyway.

The hall was in a hell of a state before it's makeover as it hadn't been done for years which can only be put down to a busy life and a hint of laziness and also a husband who I have yet to see even hold a paintbrush after 21 years of marriage! So, I enlisted the help of my 16 year old daughter and we set about it.

Hardly inspiring is it? So out comes the Duck Egg blue and we turned it into this ...

We had originally painted the wall behind all the pictures in the blue as well but it just looked so dark that we went over it with several coats of white to lighten it up. It still isn't completely finished as some of the woodwork needs painting in white and also we are taking the carpet out and doing something with the stairs but ... you will have to wait and see as I'm keeping it to myself at the moment but it will have the WOW factor!

The makeover so far has cost me £14 for the paint and £6 for two lampshades in the same shade of blue and they were reduced at my local DIY store. It's quite possible to do a room up on a small budget and I just wanted to freshen it up a bit as it was looking drab to put it mildly!

Upcycling on a budget!

For the longest time I have been staring at a mini chest of drawers from Ikea and trying to get around to upcycling it. I bought it many years ago for my son to keep his rock and fossil collection in and then he gave it to his sister and she kept her bits and bobs in it and then her younger sister had it to keep her junk in so it has been around the block a bit. They decided at the grand old ages of 16 and 13 that they no longer needed it and so it came into my possession. 

So it sat in my bedroom for many months looking forlorn and feeling very sorry for itself. I housed my collection of bangles and bracelets in it and left it at that. 

One day last week I finally decided what to do with it ...

This is the before picture. It did have all the numbers for handles but I tried the round ceramic on for size before I took the photo and then decided not to use them afterall.

I bought a tester pot of Farrow & Ball paint in Lulworth Blue and set about painting it. I then got out some of my printed paper collection and chose some that went nice with the paint.  I lay the paper pattern side down and traced around the drawers. I then cut them out and glued them to the drawers using a cheap PVA glue. When the glue had dried I trimmed off any excess with a Stanley knife. While the glue was drying, I gave the unit a coating of quick drying varnish and when the drawers had dried I did the same with them. I left the whole thing to dry properly overnight. The whole project cost me £3.99 which was the cost of the paint.

The project took very little time apart from waiting for things to dry. Any left over paint you have laying around can be used and you could use wallpaper samples on the drawers as well. PVA glue is available very cheaply and I think mine was £1.99 for 500ml from The Works and it was my daughters so we already had it.

Photography is not my strongest point as you have probably guessed but you can see the difference a bit of paint and paper can make.

My next project is to create a patchwork wall in my bedroom using wallpaper samples so hopefully I will be able to show you that soon or perhaps something else I am currently working on ...