The “Spare” Spare Room – Part I

This week our mini house projects are taking a mini break as we’ve embarked on a slightly more ambitious project and have been giving our third bedroom a lick of paint.

The only room in the house that doesn’t have decades of paint-caked-on-wallpaper-caked-on-paint-caked-on-wallpaper to contend with, it’s still taken us a while to get round to doing anything with it but having had guests to stay at the weekend it made me realise just how grubby the walls were and the pale pink clashed horribly with our lovely sofa bed.

Here are some pictures of the room when we moved in (and check out that light fixture they left behind…!)

sparespareroom1

sparespareroom2

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This poor room has been designated our “multi-purpose” room and has been everything from a dumping ground to a laundry room as well as housing Pete’s mammoth CD collection, all my stock for DaisychainBaby and various other odds and ends.

sparespareroom4

The first little bit of work we did was quite soon after we moved in when we had all the light switches moved from their position behind the doors, to being on the proper side as you walked in the room. We since worked out that at some point in the house’ history, the doors had switched positions making it look as though the light switches were now in the wrong place when in fact it was the doors but hey ho. The work was done, leaving this ugly exposed infill (the same in the living room, dining room and other spare bedroom too!)

sparespareroom5

Little by little though we have started clearing the room and trying to give it some kind of identity, knowing that it wouldn’t be a designated guest bedroom since we’ll use the other spare room for that.

We bought a lovely sofa bed from Multiyork (which was a bit of an interesting process, you can read about it here) that looks out onto the garden at the back, and also picked up a storage unit for my stock from IKEA so it’s no longer a dumping ground of bags and boxes.

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Plans for this room include new flooring, new windows, white walls and custom fit cupboards.

storage

We want to replace the carpet with a new floor and fix all the holes and squeaky boards underneath, as well as replacing the skirting boards. The window is also on the “to-do” list along with shutters to match the front of the house but there’s no rush, it will happen eventually.

So for the last two nights after work, we’ve been settling down to paint and have been making good progress. As always, Dulux Brilliant White is the go-to for temporary fixes around the house, we’re not sure how much mess and disruption will be caused by taking up the carpet and ripping off the skirting boards so this is the perfect solution.

Here’s a little peep at the white where I’ve been cutting in, I’ll save the finished result for next Wednesday’s post but needless to say it’s already looking so much cleaner and fresher.

The first paint

How quickly do you get a whole room finished? I’d love to see some inspiration.

Click here to visit our webshop, DaisychainBaby

21 Comments

    • Lins
      August 5, 2015 / 11:26 pm

      Oh they so are, such an ingenious idea! Thank you for popping by X

  1. August 5, 2015 / 3:19 pm

    This all looks very exciting. I love the sofa bed. We are about to embark on a new office/guest room and I’m trying to decide between sofa bed and day bed. Still not sure which route to take but this sofa bed is very ‘me’. Looking forward to seeing the finished room. I love the IKEA unit, those are just so perfect for hiding things away.

    • Lins
      August 5, 2015 / 11:47 pm

      Thanks Sue, it can be tricky to decide but we knew we’d never have guests round often enough to warrant two properly made up spare bedrooms. And it’s somewhere for me to go when Pete’s snoring gets too much 😉 Look forward to seeing what you decide X

  2. mummyofboygirltwins
    August 5, 2015 / 3:56 pm

    Love that sofa bed – the colour is beautiful. Getting rooms like this right can be tricky – multi-purpose rooms often are! But the unit is perfect for storage and keeping it neat and today. Great job and thanks so much for linking up with #HomeEtc

    Jess xx

    • Lins
      August 5, 2015 / 11:46 pm

      Thanks Jess, I’m hoping one day we can eventually break out the sewing machine and have a little craft corner too! X

  3. August 5, 2015 / 9:39 pm

    Your stamina for DIY is so impressive! Our spare rooms always become dumping grounds – especially when they lack a defined purpose. We finally sorted out our shocker of a spare bedroom last Christmas – once we set our minds to something is usually takes us a few days to get a room re-painted. We just don’t get round to it very often! I love your new storage and the sofa bed #HomeEtc

    • Lins
      August 5, 2015 / 11:21 pm

      Ah thanks lovely, I do go in fits and starts but am definitely guilty of never quite finishing a project X

  4. August 5, 2015 / 9:40 pm

    I can’t believe that you are getting rid of that light fitting ha! The sofa bed is a gorgeous colour, I love brilliant white walls! Good luck with it x

    • Lins
      August 5, 2015 / 11:20 pm

      Haha Lisa well believe it or not Pete has just convinced me to leave the light fitting be…for now! X

  5. August 5, 2015 / 9:50 pm

    This promises to be an amazing makeover. I adore the colour of your sofa bed. I have a lot of that in my house. Pre-kids, it used to take me a weekend to decorate a room. Now, I think it would take a year!

    • Lins
      August 5, 2015 / 11:19 pm

      I can only imagine how long it would take to get things done with kids! It feels like this is taking me forever because I’ve only been doing it in the evenings but we’re making good progress X

  6. August 5, 2015 / 11:43 pm

    Good luck with the rest of the room. When I am painting a room I try to get it all done in a day or two if at all possible. Otherwise it ends up half painted for months and months, like our bathroom doors have done!
    Your sofa is a beautiful colour.
    #HomeEtc
    Fionnuala from http://www.threesonslater.blogspot.com

  7. Lucy
    August 6, 2015 / 9:26 am

    I’m so excited to see how it develops! Your sofa bed is a lovely colour and I really like the boxes you’ve used in the Ikea unit – were they from Ikea too? x

    • Lins
      August 9, 2015 / 9:33 pm

      They sure were Lucy, you can get all kinds of things to go in the cube – those drawers like I have or doors or baskets – it’s a great mix and match system X

  8. Stephanie Robinson
    August 7, 2015 / 10:35 am

    It looks great already Lins – sometimes when we look at our houses through the eyes of others it’s all it takes to get cracking isn’t it? I’m just starting our spare bedroom too for that very reason! x #homeetc

    • Lins
      August 9, 2015 / 9:33 pm

      I totally agree, and it’s probably a good thing too otherwise I’d never get anything done! Can’t wait to see how your spare room turns out X

  9. August 8, 2015 / 7:53 pm

    Aaah good on you — you’re doing so well with it all!!! It’s looking lovely — I love all the colours. Oddly enough, they work very well with your blog logo 😉 Thanks so much for linking up with #HomeEtc — hope to see you again next week! x

    Caro | http://www.thetwinklediaries.co.uk

    • Lins
      August 9, 2015 / 9:31 pm

      haha I hadn’t even noticed! Thank you as always for hosting Xx

  10. August 9, 2015 / 1:35 pm

    I love the colours of the sofa and the drawers for the ikea unit, a lick of paint with total transform the room though. I do wonder if you guys ever have down time 😉

    • Lins
      August 9, 2015 / 9:30 pm

      LOL Laura I think we’ve long since forgotten what down time is. My colleague at work keeps telling me that you’re never really busy unless you have children but I think we give it a pretty good go! X

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