My perfectly tranquil bedroom

I’m going to do something in this blog post which I’ve not done before – I’m going to write about my own home and my choices in interior design style. This has taken a month to write and re-write… procrastination took over! As a newcomer to the interior blogging world, writing about my own taste has been daunting. But I’m passionate about lovely homes and if I inspire just one person with this blog post then I’ll be delighted!

So this was my bedroom when I first moved into my quirky Victorian terraced cottage. The carpet runs throughout the upstairs and staircase and was relatively new so I decided to try and work with it as I didn’t have the budget to change it. If you’re working with a tight budget it’d best to prioritise. My priorities were to get rid of the magnolia (meh!), get more light into the room and add more storage.

Bedroom before

I decided I wanted to go for calming grey tones with touches of pale yellow, green and white to lift it and add some colour. As a single mum to a 2-year old boy, my bedroom is the only room in the house which isn’t littered with toys and so I wanted to make it my perfectly tranquil space to relax. We spend on average 30% of our time asleep and so it’s so important to have a relaxing space without distractions. I don’t even have a TV in my bedroom as I need all the sleep that I can get!

I started by looking through the Farrow & Ball website for ideas, and came up with this shortlist of contenders for my perfect grey paint. (At this point I should point out that F&B choose the more universal spelling of gray rather than grey, as a stickler for traditional English spelling, I opted for the latter).
A couple of weeks later I drove through Henley and noticed a new Farrow & Ball showroom and tweeted about it – they kindly sent me an invitation to their showroom opening. It was the first time I’d visited a Farrow & Ball showroom and I’d highly recommend it if you’re looking for ideas and inspiration for your home interior design. It gave me a chance to see what other options were out there. I came home armed with colour swatches and brochures and felt confident to go with my initial favourite colour, but not before getting lots of ideas for other projects! I’ve never lived in a home with wallpaper, and so I’m quite wary of using it – but Farrow & Ball do such a fantastic range that I’m tempted to use some on another project.

Farrow & Ball Henley

I ended up choosing Lamp Room Gray for the walls and All White emulsion for the ceiling and eggshell for the woodwork. I put made to measure white wooden blinds up to allow as much natural light into the room as possible and had built-in wardrobes made around the chimney breast on one wall of the bedroom. By having mirrors on the middle panels of the wardrobe, it reflects light around the rest of the bedroom.

Prepared with masking tape (big mistake – don’t use it on your walls), polyfilla and brushes I prepped my bedroom ready for painting the next day. The little one woke up the next morning with chicken pox – but armed with a paint brush, he was happy helping out.

I ended up needing to use three coats of the emulsion as two coats was quite patchy, but it was certainly worth it. The finish is fantastic and you can barely see a brush stroke – the colour is wonderful too and I’m really happy with my new tranquil bedroom.
 I’d love to know what you think – leave me a comment at the bottom and let me know!
Although my bedroom is a perfectly tranquil space for me now – it’s also child-friendly, and the little one certainly loves it too!
Natalia x