Master Bedroom Makeover

You know, I have been giving myself an altogether hard time thinking about what I haven't been doing to get this house of ours organised. The other day I sat here and read my previous blog entries and looked at the photos and do you know what? I have been busy! I've done loads!

This year has been a hugely busy one with my husband being made redundant and then going self-employed. We were going to move for a job for him and then we decided not to. We have also aaaaaalmost finished an investment property we bought and that was a massive project to tackle and something we've never done before. Oh, and not forgetting the care of our two kiddos of course! So yeah, I need to stop being so hard on myself. I am trying really hard and actually achieving a lot. It's just not everything... Yet.

So anyhoo! I have our master bedroom redo to show you and I love how it turned out. First of all, I will show you the before photos.

We kept all the same furniture, but just changed up the soft furnishings and repainted. I moved the bed to the opposite wall too. It sits much better over that side I think. The paint is Dulux - Perfectly Taupe. I will have to control myself in order to NOT paint the rest of the house this colour!!

I love our massive bed. It's an Ikea king size, so it's really huge. It does mean that I am limited in my furniture arrangement, even though our bedroom is pretty big for a British house. However, the sacrifice is worth it for the comfort and wriggle room during sleep time.

We also had the ceiling re-boarded then replastered and cornicing added. All the ceilings upstairs were pine-clad boards and absolutely vile. Underneath we found they were all woodchip, so we just had to re-board and plaster rather than just skim. This was the last room that needed this done, so that's a job completely ticked off the list. We couldn't afford to do every ceiling at once, so we've been doing them as we redecorated each space.

These ginormous Ikea Pax wardrobes took over the whole length of one wall. I posted about them on here before.

I decluttered the inside of them so that I could get rid of the unit on the end. It really opens the room up, and you no longer have to breath in when you come through the door!

More or less everything is from Ikea. I adore the place! The bedding, knitted throw, and curtains are from there and most of the furniture with a couple of exceptions I'll show you.

The chest of drawers was actually left in our first house by the previous owners. We even found old 70's photos of a woman sunbathing topless hidden underneath the drawer lining!! I thought about painting it, but I wanted some wood finish in here to bring some warmth into the room. I don't like the handles, which aren't the original ones. I put cheapo Ikea handles on a few years ago and they just don't go. I will buy some to match the wardrobe handles when I next do an Ikea run.

I also want to put something on this blank wall... Maybe frame some of the yellow fabric I have used as an accent. Or maybe some old plates or something. Don't know yet.

Here's a close up of the dresser top. I used a lovely yellow fabric laid underneath a piece of glass I had cut. It's a lot cleaner and easier to wipe down when I get makeup on there.

Check out these cute little ceramic hearts...

 Love them! :)

Oh, and I needed something to go with the drawers, so I picked up this old chair at a charity shop for only £5. It was really easy to recover the seat pad using the same yellow fabric from the top of the drawers.

Well, that's all! Like I said, there are still some finishing touches to be made, but on the whole, I'm really pleased! Here's a recap...

I've linked up to...

Tatertots n Jello - Weekend Wrap Up
The Shabby Creek Cottage - Transformation Thursday
Adorned From Above
Chic on a Shoestring - Flaunt It Friday
French Country Cottage - Feathered Nest Friday
Simply Designing - Friday Link Party
Organise & Decorate Everything - Home Decor & Organising Link Party
Skip To My Lou - Made By You Mondays
Sumo's Sweet Stuff - Market Yourself Monday
My Romantic Home - Show & Tell Friday
It's a Hadgepodge Life - It's a Hodgepodge Friday
Funky Junk - SNS
Be Different, Act Normal - Show and Tell Saturday
Too Much Time - Get Schooled Saturday
Positively Splendid - Saturday Seven
I Heart Naptime - Sundae Scoop Link Party
Debbiedoos - Newbies Party

Wardrobe Decluttering

This is our mahooooosive wardrobe in our bedroom. It's from IKEA (naturally) and is part of their Pax range, which is brilliant for being able to pick and mix what kinds of storage features you want inside. Sorry, the photo is wonky, I must have been in a rush.

A couple of things I feel I have to mention here are, a) the general massiveness of the wardrobes and, b) the general ikkyness of this room.

a) The wardrobes are so big because I am an idiot. Basically, I have a natural instinct in me which screams "BUY BIG!" whenever we're getting something new. Remember the "Big Unit?" My idea. Anyway, it usually takes every ounce of control to moderate the size of anything I buy, particularly when it comes to storage items. My natural impulse is to get the biggest thing that will fit in the space so that we can hide as much of our stuff in there as possible. I am battling this ridiculous urge since it is far better to streamline the amount of stuff you actually own in order to possess smaller, more compact pieces of furniture that don't completely dominate the space.

When we bought these wardrobes I was very organised and cut out wardrobe (and bed and bedside cabinet) sized footprints from newspaper and spent ages working out where each thing would go. In the end, I decided that the wardrobes could go on this wall, adjacent to the door and that it didn't matter that the door can't fully open because look at all the room we have to hide our crap! Sigh. Fast forward to us having babies and now I curse having to squish myself in sideways while carrying a child in my arms! Silly, silly Sarah.

Soooo, part of my organising mission with these bad boys is for me to be able to condense all of the items into the two double wardrobes so that I can get rid of the single one on the end.

b) Our bedroom badly needs decorating, but is sadly right far down on the list of "things to spend our money on." Above that being a car, the garden, and the living room. This is why the walls are all marked and you can see a trendy red border around the top of the walls. We stripped the fabulous orange pine cladding from the ceiling and now enjoy staring at the bumpy contours of nail hole pocked woodchip. Jealous much?

Anyhoo, this photo shows the inside of the wardrobes before I tackled them. Not toooo bad you might think, but on closer examination, you can see why it doesn't work. There are loads of inefficient systems going on here - too many drawers versus hanging space, drawers containing things that need throwing out, wellies in drawers (!) and just a general need for some decluttering.

This is "after." The changes are subtle, but here's what I did...
- Removed two of the wire drawers from the middle section and utilised a second hanging rail that was already there, just unused.
- I went through and took out two bags of clothes to either sell on eBay or send it to charity.
- I removed some personal care items and put them in my bedside cabinet instead.
- Took out the wellies and rehoused elsewhere.
- Used the newly freed-up drawers in 'his' side to store the kid's clothes I am going to be listing on eBay.
- Organised my clothes into sections - jackets, cardis, dresses, tunics, shirts, jumpers, tops, jeans, trousers, leggings.

I do feel better for doing all that! :o)

Oh, and those two wire drawers i removed make brilliant underbed storage! Now i keep my handbags in one and a few random items including those wellies in the other.

I'm linking this post up to I'm An Organising Junkie's 52 Weeks of Organising:

Bedside Table / Nightstand Sort Out

This was the view when I opened my bedside cabinet door before I sorted it out last week. The bedside cabinet is part of a massive organising project that I am still on with, but since it's been a while since my last post I thought I'd best give you something. :o)

Okay, the top shelf had all kinds of crap up there - q-tips, contact lenses, face wipes, sleep mask, clips, blah blah blah. The middle shelf had an IKEA Skubb box full of waxing strips, spare deodorant, and other personal care items. The blue container to the left of that is the tub of receipts I mentioned earlier and some receipts aren't even in it, they're just stuffed in front. The bottom shelf has a box with our wedding stuff in - certificate, ring boxes, etc. Yes, we got married 4 years ago... There's also a Topshop shoebox with sentimental stuff in and some tarot cards. The black cosmetic case on the left was empty.

Are you ready for the transformation?

Ta daaa!

This cabinet is now my dedicated "personal care station". I used to have all of my hair, makeup, lady products spread out all over the bedroom in different places, but now it's all in one place for the most part.

Top shelf - Make up used less often. My daily make up is kept in my daily box (explained below).
Middle shelf - I used two IKEA Skubb drawer dividers. On the left is my waxing strips, spare deodorant, perfume, oil, etc. Things I don't use too often. On the right is what I internally refer to as my daily box. In a morning I just grab it and it contains everything I need to get ready on an average day. I'll post more detail about this later because it's really helped shave time off my getting ready routine!
Bottom shelf - Just other lesser-used items like leg tanning cream, spare face wipes, body lotion, glasses case, costume jewellry, etc.

Admittedly, if I had enough hours in the day a lot of these "lesser-used items" should be in my daily box, but I'm a mum of a 4-month-old and a 2-year-old. I barely have time to even dry my hair with a hairdryer these days, nevermind primp. :o)