DIY Project - White Painted Floorboards

I love my home.  I love my life.  I love white.  I love girly, pretty stuff.  I do NOT love orange pine floorboards circa 1988 combined with yucky second-hand stained timber furniture from the charity shop!  It's one thing to have a house full of beaten-up vintage beauties, but it's another to have a house full of 'soon to be shabby chic if only I could be bothered to pull out the paint and could find an additional 10 hours in my week' cut-price bargains!

Finally, after years of talking about it, we painted our floorboards white... HIP HIP HOORAY!!!    Did I mention that we rent?  Did I mention that we didn't ask for permission first?  Did I mention that we also have a cat living here illegally?  We are such naughty decorating, pet-owning delinquents, painting walls in bold colours and renovating our kitchen without whispering a word to our landlord!  We are officially insane but we have so much fun.  Never mind the fact that if we ever leave this apartment we will need to spend a solid fortnight returning it to it's former, innocuous glory.

The process was hell, I won't lie.  Hideous beyond all words and imagination.  My handy husband, in his infinite wisdom, decided to use a tiny belt sander to strip the floor - it took hours and hours and hours, leaving us all covered in layers of the finest sawdust you ever saw (tip: hire a floor sander and damn the expense!).  There were small toddler footprints of orange crud caked onto our carpet for weeks!  While in the throws of decorating dementia, I decided to 'pretty up' my tired old desk before falling in a paint-splattered heap, declaring to never ever pick up a paint brush for as long as I lived.

But the results are totally worth every harrowing minute of renovation angst.  Our studio space is now bright and light and oh so stylish that it takes my breath away some days.  

Our journey...

Leo and Daphne Cat (the illegal immigrant) doing a final inspection

Our beautiful storm blue feature wall - this is my husband's side of the studio!

Hard at work sanding - this took FOREVER and nearly resulted in divorce!

At this point I was hyperventilating imagining our landlord knocking on our front door

The Monkey eating dinner amongst the chaos, totally unperturbed!

The goodies for my desk makeover

My new work space, complete with pink desk and white floor - honestly, it feels like sitting in a musk-flavoured, candy-floss cloud of happiness!

For the floors we used:

White Paving Paint

For my desk I used:

Milk Paint in Marshmallow from Porters Paints finished off with bees wax.  Milk paint has a beautiful rustic, chalky finish that was traditionally used in Shaker style furniture.  It is made from milk by-products mixed with powdered oxide pigments to produce a wonderfully subtle palette of soft colours.

Coral Crush

I love this room... the combination of the white wicker beds with the gold leaf mirror and coral detailed bedlinen seems vaguely Caribbean to me.  It looks like a room that would belong in one of those beautiful old, white-washed plantation style homes with hurricane shutters adorning the exterior like eyelashes.  I can imagine lying on one of those plump beds, listening to waves crash on a nearby beach, while pretty linen curtains suck and billow in the sea breeze.  Pass me my espadrilles will you, I think I fancy a swim!

Image from here

Hurry Up Spring

Its cold and rainy 

I want to be 

wearing pretty printed cotton

and drinking iced tea

Hurry up Spring!

Images from here

Bedroom Scheme: Mauve & Ice Blue

Ever since I was tiny I've been in love with mauve... I blame it on my grandmother Marnie (it's such a granny word after all) who used to wear mauve cardigans, grow almost exclusively mauve coloured flowers and decorate her house with mauve cushions (a little O.T.T I'll grant you, but I grew up in a house where the predominant colour combination was brown on brown so you'll forgive my adoration!).  

To this day, one of my favourite bedroom schemes is mauve and ice blue.  I find it so soothing, so pretty, so peaceful... so undeniably girly!  Often, just a touch of pinky purple is quite enough x

Images from here

Thieving Missy

The Flower Thief strikes again!

For weeks I have been pushing the pram past two particularly beautiful rose bushes, my palms just itching to pinch a couple of buds to photograph... but these bushes are on somebody else's property and I've always drawn the line at nicking flowers from private gardens (I prefer to pilfer from the local government instead - it makes me feel better about paying taxes!).  Today, would you believe it, the ground was littered with fallen flowers like a blanket laid out for the pixies!  I walked home with a smile on my face and a pram full of petals... happy days!

Photos my me

Some Floss for The Fairies

I'm restoring the status quo from yesterday!

If I ever have a little girl, her bedroom will look like this... and if I don't, then there's a good chance poor Leo's bedroom will also look like this!  I can just imagine him padding about the place dressed in a pink tutu and waving a fairy wand... 

Images from here

House Tour - Come Along With Me My Pretty

Apsley House U.K

The chairs, the dust pink satin drapes, the vintage wallpaper, the crystal chandeliers, the oversize mirrors, the fluffy animal hides, the BATH... if I lived all alone, with no grotty boys and just a cat for company, this would be the house I'd choose!

If I had to pick a favourite feature it would be those pink drapes - the colour is so perfectly and obscenely girly, I can feel the seven-year-old inside me crying with longing.  What's your favourite feature?

If I could...

IF I COULD, I WOULD:

Wear this dress...

and these shoes...

I would pick these flowers...

and walk here at dusk...

...before falling asleep in this bed

HAPPY FRIDAY xx

simplypix

Confessions of a Girly Girl

As regular followers of this blog will attest, I am more than a little taken with the colour pink... so much so that I thought it would be a genetic impossibility for me to produce a hulking baby boy... sadly there will be no pretty floral fabric or Barbie dolls in my child's world (unless of course our buddha baby turns out to have a penchant for polka dot cravats and a love of window treatments!). I have resigned myself to an everyday life of blue - thank God I still have a fantasy land that I can stuff full of PRETTY PINK to keep my inner girly girl happy x

Paris Hotel Boutique

Pastel Party Princess

Last weekend Andre and I felt very honoured to be included in the christening and birthday celebrations of the divine children of my friend Emma (of By Emma Designs fame). Em is so incredibly talented and creative - just have a look at the 'Candy Corner' she whipped up. Honestly, it was one of the prettiest and most delectable things I have ever laid eyes on! Andre has dubbed her Queen of Pastel City as a result! Hopefully you can take some ideas from Em's beautiful displays.

The star cut watermelon was my favourite!

Photos by me

The Perfect Room for a Girly Tea Party!

I have been blessed with a group of very beautiful and very talented friends who I'm sure would all love to sit around in this gorgeous room, drinking copious cups of tea and eating pretty pastel iced cupcakes with those little silver balls on them... in fact, if I could make a wish right now, that would be it!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone x

ffffound

Quirky, Colourful Friday

HOORAY it's Friday! In celebration of this very exciting little fact, I thought a splash of bright colour would reflect my mood.... Have a fantastic weekend everyone xx

shootfactory