Dining Room Mood Board

Hello

Today I'm going to share with you another mood board I created. This one is for the dining room. We are currently halfway through decorating this room and it is coming together really nicely. This design centred around the gorgeous birdcage wallpaper which is from Next (currently still in stock along with some wall decals in slightly different colours) priced at £15 per roll. This paper has a white background, with blue, green, brown and cream birdcages. The outlines of the cages are silver and all the of them have a pearlised finish which catches the light beautifully. My only criticism of this paper is that is stains easily. Lucy has shaken water off after a walk and it has marked the paper (humph!).

If you have seen my furniture customisation post you will know that we chose the duck egg blue colour to pick out the woodwork and have painted the non-papered walls white. It looks very fresh and clean :) 

I really want to have the furniture half painted like the photo above, but instead of cream use the duck egg blue. We have decided to get some kind of wood flooring because of the pets with a couple of  green rugs to make it softer under foot. The ones pictured are, surprise surprise, from Next, as is everything else in the picture. I have already bought the books which have secret storage and they tie in well with the wallpaper. In terms of accessories I will get things in either the white, blue or green that is on the wallpaper. I'm also planning a piece of wall art with pictures of the pets in ornate silver frames, possible with some cutout birdcages from the wallpaper intermingled between them.

Once we have finished this room I will upload some photos of the finished look and you can see how closely I followed the mood board!

TTFN!

Furniture Customisation

Hello

Today I thought I would write a post about how to customise wooden furniture. The techniques used would apply to any type of wooden furniture that you may want to customise. One of my new favourite hobbies is looking around second hand/antique furniture stores. Whilst doing this I kept seeing really cute wall mounted cupboards. I decided that I would really like one to go in the dining room to go with the traditional look we wanted to achieve. I found a really nice one in a local second hand furniture shop that had the perfect look. The price was £40 but I managed to haggle them down slightly to £36. This is what it looked like.

The first step is to fill in any holes or dents with some wood filler.

The second step is to sand down every surface you are going to paint and any areas that you have filled in with wood filler. This provides a good surface for painting. It should be done with a fine grade sandpaper so you don't get grooves in the wood. It also helps to keep the grain visible. 

Tip: Wrap the sandpaper around a small block of wood. This makes it quicker to do and easier to hold.

The third step is to wipe over where you have sanded with a damp cloth to remove any dust. If you don't do this the paint won't adhere to the wood properly and you won't get a smooth finish. Let the wood dry thoroughly before moving on to step 4.

The forth and final step is to paint it. The paint I have used is Homebase Home of Colour satin wood paint in the colour Duck Egg. This is the paint I have used on all the woodwork in the room so it will tie everything together nicely. Its best to use a wood paint, but if you want to match a wall colour you can use that emulsion paint, but you will need to apply a couple of layers of clear varnish afterwards to protect it.

You want to use smooth even strokes and keep an eye on any edges or joins for drops or build up of paint as you go. If you do this then you can correct them before the paint dries. I painted the whole cupboard with two coats and did a third on the outside surfaces. The number of coats you need will depend on the type of paint and what colour you are using or painting over. I didn't need to sand mine in between coats, but if you are a bit of a messy painter it may be worth doing a light sand between coats. But makes sure to wipe the surface as before, between layers.

 

And its complete!

Finishing Touches....

I added a couple of small hooks that I got from Homebase. The owls and heart are Christmas decorations from the local garden centre and the candle is a Yankee Small Jar in the fragrance Pineapple Cilantro. I got this purely because of the colour as it matches the green on the wallpaper. It does smell lovely too!

I'm really pleased with the results and its matches the other woodwork perfectly. Its a big improvement on the grubby cupboard I started with.

TTFN and good luck with your own furniture customisation projects!