I've been busy in the home! This year's home renovation project was unexpected, but the result is quite spectacular. I must praise my husband for a job well done, as this was all his idea and his inspiration.
Read my blog post to see how we created the perfect teenage bedroom for our youngest daughter in a tiny bedroom at our 1950's semi-detached house.
My Home Renovation: Small Bedroom Makeover
Building a House Extension
It all began with a visit to the Homebuilding and Renovation Show at Birmingham NEC earlier this year. My husband and I had planned to extend our house when our mortgage contract came up for renewal. We wanted to extend our kitchen and living space downstairs and create a larger fourth bedroom upstairs. Unfortunately, we were brought down to earth with a bump when we learned just how expensive a home building job is in the current financial climate. We couldn't afford it.
Following a lengthy meeting with our mortgage advisor which ended in an agreement to renew our contract for two years, at which point we will review the extension plan and try to find necessary funds, we realised that we needed a new plan. We returned home, sulked for a while, felt sorry for ourselves, and then we decided to try something different.
Small Bedroom Makeover
Our 1950's semi-detached house is a typical British home for its time. We have decent living space, although it is dated and doesn't quite fit our collection of musical instruments and craft supplies. Our kitchen and bathroom are vintage, having been installed most likely in the 1970s or possibly earlier, I'm not sure. They need an upgrade, but we can't afford that right now. And then there is the tiny third bedroom.
Measuring a neat 2.36m x 2.3m, our third bedroom is tiny. It sits at the front of the house above the hallway and includes a built-in cupboard that sits above the staircase. For the past two years it has been used as a playroom by our children while they shared a bunk bed in the large second bedroom belonging to our eldest daughter. She is almost a teenager now and she wants her space back. Our younger daughter, now in her last year at Primary school, wanted her own bedroom. But it needed modernising.
My husband spent some time measuring the room from all angles, and eventually decided that we could fit a full-sized single bed in the room, a tiny desk, and some wall cupboards and shelves for storage. It would require moving the radiator from its location underneath the window, but fortunately my brother is a plumber, so I called in a favour. He moved the radiation to a new location near the bedroom door, which is actually better because it sends heat to the landing as well as the bedroom.
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Small Bedroom Makeover: Before and After
Stripping the Wallpaper
My job was to decorate the bedroom. During the school summer holiday, my daughters and I began to strip away the ancient wallpaper. We went shopping for paint and my daughter chose a lovely shade of green (her favourite colour) for the walls, along with white gloss for the built-in cupboard and skirting boards. I decided not to paint the ceiling because I just couldn't face it, and it looks fine as it is. My daughter also requested chalkboard paint for her bedroom door having seen this idea in a blog post we found.
Due to it being a small bedroom, stripping the wallpaper and repainting the walls didn't take too long. My biggest challenge was painting the built-in cupboard and stripping wallpaper around the window, where it had welded on and was not coming away easily. But we got there in the end, and my husband installed a shiny new curtain pole, removing the childish yellow one that we had previously used. With the radiator moved and the walls freshly painted, we were ready for a new carpet. My daughter chose a luxurious black carpet, and it looks and feels wonderful!
A trip to IKEA
Then came the furniture. We enjoyed a family visit to our local IKEA store in Warrington, which we hadn't visited for many years. Indeed, I think it was our daughters' first visit to the shop. We gathered lots of ideas, and I think that's where my daughter got her inspiration for the colour scheme. She decided she wanted black furniture to coordinate with the green paint. We agreed on the MALM bed and MICKE desk for her room, along with a couple of floating shelves and three square wall cupboards. My husband did an amazing job assembling and fitting the furniture, so I want to say well done, Mr Green!
The room came together beautifully, and I took my daughters to Dunelm to browse soft furnishings for the finishing touch. We found a lovely safari themed duvet cover set and matching curtains, and since my youngest daughter is an animal-lover, she decided that was what she wanted. The coordinating silver curtain pole came from Dunelm, along with the chalkboard paint. Finally, my husband installed a TV at the foot of the bed, which was a birthday present from the grandparents.
The Perfect Tween Bedroom
And there we have it, the perfect tween bedroom that will easily last throughout our daughter's teenage years. I am really impressed with how it turned out, and I am thankful for the vision from my husband. I admit that I did get very miserable when our extension plan was denied, and I struggled to see how we could modernise the tiny, scruffy, neglected bedroom. Sometimes you just need a nudge in the right direction. I also want to thank the bank of Mum and Dad (my in-laws) for financing the project. What do you think of our tiny bedroom makeover?
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Small Bedroom Makeover: Before and After
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