Before
The room had been depressing me. It was painted a cold green colour at two ends, and had dark brown and green curtains and cushions which were left behind by the previous inhabitants. Over the time we have been here, the walls have become dirty - just general wear and tear, plus a puppy who occasionally chases flies and moths up the walls with muddy paws - and the carpet has been ruined. This is a combination of the type of carpet - a light coloured loop pile - plus cats who like to scratch anything and everything. Locking the cats in the room by accident doesn't help. And when we first moved in, the cats were anxious and decided to christen one particular corner which has never fully recovered. The puppy added to that with a few accidents, and lets be realistic, we live in the country, so muddy paws and boots are a way of life. Not conducive to keeping a carpet clean.What to do?
We have just had two weeks off work, and I knew I wanted to work on the living room during this time, so I had been chatting to Greg and others about what to do. He had said he didn't want the room too modern, and wanted to keep the cottage feel to it. And he wanted bookshelves either side of the fireplace.So, I'd seen some nice striped fabric in blue, red, cream and brown and wondered if I could do something with those colours - but stripes would be too modern. I also saw some wallpaper that I liked, which was a bit pricey, but maybe that could be used. But before I got a chance to do anything with these thoughts, Greg decided to take my vague "red, blue" ideas and turn it into purple. While I was away at a conference, he painted the walls by the fireplace a deep purple.
Dealing with purple walls
He loved it, and hey, he lives here too, so I had to work with it. I used Pinterest and the internet to search for colour schemes and ideas that might work with purple, and felt that shades of grey would tone, with perhaps a damask pattern for the curtains in a darker shade of grey. But would grey be too dull, dark and cold? Hmmm.
During my search, I kept coming across schemes with green in them. I'd wanted to avoid this colour, because the room was already green and I wanted a change. But, this scheme from design-seeds.com, showing how the natural green and purple colours in asparagus look so good, totally changed my mind.
Before I finalised it, I needed to find a fabric for curtains and cushions that would complement the theme. After a trip to Dunelm and Fabric Warehouse I found Fryetts Trentino in Sorbet, amongst the custom-make curtain samples. They didn't have it in stock for me to buy, so I found a source online and bought direct from curtains-fabrics.co.uk.Greg then introduced me to the Dulux Colour Concept app for the iPad, and this was so helpful in pulling all of the elements together and choosing the paint that should go on the other 3 walls in the room. You can pick a colour from a photo and it will tell you which Dulux colour it is, or you can look at contrasting or harmonising colours. It's so flexible and easy to use. My final plan was decided.
Starting work and swearing at shelves
I started by re-doing the purple walls again, as Greg had painted them in the evening and in daylight you could see a few weaker patches. Then I made a start on the other walls, in my light green. It was a bit fiddly around the windows, but I got there! 2 coats of flat matt were enough over the magnolia and cold green. I was done in 2 days.
As the room was coming together, Greg was itching to get his bookshelves built, so he spent 3 days putting them up. They're made of raw timber, and because we don't want to attempt drilling into the stone chimney breast, they only have support on two sides. But he used 100mm fixings into the wall for the 2in x 2in battens, and then screwed the shelf onto the batten, so they're not going anywhere! A 2in x 1in batten on the front hides the supports at the back.
While he was shouting and cussing at his shelves (walking to and from his workshop, at the far end of the garden, to get to his tools and chopsaw and make each piece the exact right length was getting wearing over the course of 12 shelves!), I went to John Lewis and found some purple and green chenille to make some cushion covers. I already had a lot of cushions, some of which matched the old curtains, plus a few others I had bought in an attempt to try out other colour schemes (orange and teal. No.) so I was planning on making some new covers and using the fillings of the ones I already had. I debated just buying new cushions, as places like Tesco sell them so cheaply at £5 or £6 each, but the colours they had weren't quite right. In the end, I am glad I bought the fabric and zips and made my own. From £30 of fabric (1 metre of each colour at £15 a metre) I made 4 square removable covers and 2 rectangular cushions and re-used all the small cushions I already had, including the fillings from two where the cushion lining had split open. I actually put two cushions inside each cover, as they were all a bit flat looking! I'll write a separate post on making the cushion covers.Cut once. ONCE!
Once Greg was done with the shelves and we could clean the room of sawdust and tools, I could then get my curtain fabric out. Curtain one started ominously, with me gaily thinking I could use the 150cm width of the fabric as the 150cm drop I needed for my curtain length. But of course, I hadn't looked at the pattern properly, and the flowers would be growing sideways if I did that. So I didn't follow the 'check, measure, check, measure and check and measure again, then cut once' rule. I checked, measured, cut. Fail. But I only made one cut, so quickly saw my mistake. And realised that I wouldn't have any spare for cushion covers (yes, I still had 4 large cushions that needed new covers) so I would need to buy some more anyway. Phew. Continue.
I will write a separate post about making the curtains, but suffice to say it took me all day to just make one. Just one. Not a pair, just one. OK, so I did walk the dog, stop for tea, lunch and dinner breaks too, but I was still sewing at 8pm after beginning around 11am. I re-used the lining and the header tape from the old curtains, so part of the day was spent unpicking them, washing them and straightening them out. Otherwise, they were fairly straightforward, if a bit unwieldy at 3 metres in length. That fabric width of 150cm? It is easier to just join two pieces together and have them slightly longer than you need than it would be to try and cut a piece to size against the grain.
So, the room is nearly done. I still need to do the other 3 curtains (we have two bays), and the new flooring (laminate in Liberty Oak to match the hallway, plus a rug - yet to be bought) will be ordered on Monday, but the room now looks like OUR room, warm and inviting.
UPDATE: October 2013 - Finished room (except for two curtains still to do...)
