This living/dining room is in the spare cottage on our property – it’s the
house where our visitors, friends and family stay when they come to visit us. It
is certainly shaping up to be a lovely house... but USED to be an absolute eyesore (as you can see from the 'before' photos!)
I've featured a couple of rooms
from this house on the blog before. After quite a few years of work, I’m
finally getting this house finished!
This living room was certainly a budget makeover! I basically cleaned, filled gaps, fixed anything broken, and then painted… and painted… and painted!
I did all the work myself (this is why it has taken so long, but at
least I saved money!) That said, there were a few things that I had to pay to get
help with fixing, like the tiling behind the heater. I had so much to do that I
just couldn’t get my head around having to learn how to tile as well! I did pay
our builder to do that for me - he very kindly even GAVE me the tiles as he had
them leftover from another job – what a nice bloke.
For the flooring… I was going to put lino throughout the whole house
but it was just TOO expensive, so I ripped up all the old carpet and painted
the floors. I used two coats of decking paint (in white), and then used a heavy
duty furniture varnish over the top to seal it all. It is wearing very, very
well. This meant that I only had to put lino in the rooms where there were no
floorboards. The flooring now all looks fresh, clean and lovely!
For the decorating, I again used everything that I already had. There
is nothing in either of these rooms that I didn’t already have lurking in my
shed and cupboards (I’ve been buying furniture from op-shops and the like for years!) I am
also very lucky to have been given lots of leftover furniture from family.
All the artwork on the walls is budget too – they’re all DIY except
for the black and green design one above the bookshelf… it was destined for
the scrap heap after my sister had a throw out from her course at University; a
friend of hers had painted it. That was a lucky find!
In these photos you can also see some
wrapping paper art, like in one of Caity’s posts, a framed business card near
the kitchen door, my stick wall hanging, my clip art botanical prints, leaf pictures and peg print. Above the fireplace are some lovely wooden placemats
that my mother-in-law gave me, which also look great as pictures.
I hope these photos give you some ideas for YOUR next project.
Happy decorating!
Emma
