Still working on youngest one's new room! Sneak peak!

Well I have finished scraping back and painting all the woodwork in my daughter's new room...it was bad....I hate multi-paned windows.....yeah, yeah I know they look great....as long as you dont have to prep and paint them!

But moving on, with inspiration from this image on Pinterest....

Love the brightly painted iron bed, so I did this....

 Lovely turquoise! (so much better than the black)

I have now found a great doona cover set which is going to really pop with colour in this room.

The little touches of turquoise will tie in nicely with the bed.

I am also in the middle of a rather large painting for her room which is the center motif on the bed cover.

I will show you more as I do it....stay tuned

Inspiration for a young girl's room makeover.....

So as I have mentioned a FEW times now, my eldest daughter has moved out and the youngest is going to be moving into her larger room which means I need inspiration!!! So of course I turn to Pinterest!

This is very cute! Olivia would love to have a little sister to share with..... but that is not going to happen!! And  I have been told that pink is OUT! I told her that black is OUT! She is 8 going on 16!

I love the blue and pink...but as I said pink is OUT, the tree mural is interesting though.

 The white painted timber panelling is very fresh and the high shelves are a great use of space along with the toe to toe divan beds.

 This is just fun, I love the colour, you can't help but be happy in a room like this.

How gorgeous, don't think the budget will stretch to this!

This would be every little girl's dream, wouldn't it but I think this would limit any future changes to the room and I LIKE to make changes!!!

I thought about getting her a day bed but we have inherited her sister's old iron bed.

What a great use of space in this compact room for two. A sophisticated colour pallette of beige and pink.

Another great day bed, the walls are a very pretty light aqua.

WOW! Maybe for when she is a teen ager!

LOVE THIS...I know, I know it is PINK but it also a lot of WHITE!

Well that is some food for thought at the moment.... in the meantime, I am still slugging away painting windows, skirting boards and doors.

You can find all these images my Pinterest

Well...she has moved out now the work starts!

So as I have said before, my eldest has moved out (by the way it is her 23rd birthday today, Happy Birthday Dom!!!), now it is time to get to work on her bedroom! Well she hasn't totally cleared it out yet, so I need to get in there and get the last bits and pieces out. She has left her old iron bed soooo....time for a makeover!!

Looks like I will be getting on to ebay again!!! Too much stuff to keep!

Though I do have plans for these old wicker bedside tables.... I have had them for over 20 years.... I think some white spray paint will transform them and they will last another 20 years!!!!

Olivia will be moving into the larger room (and her room will become a spare room come study for me!)Her sister's old black iron bed was not working for me.... time for something a little bit more fun....go turquoise paint!!!

Well first I undercoated it with Zinser bulls eye, my go to undercoat that works on just about everything!!!

Here comes the turquoise!!!

I couldn't find turquoise spray paint so I had to buy a tin of oil based paint....hmpfff.... a lot more work! But worth it! Though I dont think Olivia is over the moon about it yet....she just has to wait and see the big picture.

So stay tuned and see how the room transforms.... I might even keep the room colour, it was only painted a year ago and I quite like the colour and it seems to work well with the turquoise....there is a lot of other work to do, for some reason I didn't paint the windows in Dom's room when we first moved in so it is time to do that but of course it will be a lot harder now that I have had shutters installed....groan.... plus the skirting boards and door somehow missed painting....funny what you notice when most of the furniture has been removed!!

Well there is a lot of work to do ... I will keep you posted on how I am going!!!!

friday favourites

I visited spectacular Vancouver earlier this week and loved the abundant colour everywhere, especially on Granville Island. These saturated shops, studios and walkways are therefore my favourites of the week.  Happy Friday. 

amazing autumn

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.  ~Albert Camus

my entry

                                                                      Source: homestoriesatoz.com via refresheddesigns. on Pinterest

                                                                   Source: sweetpaulmag-digital.com via refresheddesigns. on Pinterest

                                                             Source: apunchofcolor.blogspot.com via refresheddesigns. on Pinterest

                                                                Source: rachelwhiting.co.uk via refresheddesigns. on Pinterest

                                                                   Source: potterybarn.com via refresheddesigns. on Pinterest

                                                                       Source: hookedonhouses.net via refresheddesigns. on Pinterest

real life colour inspiration

Hope you all had a great weekend full of end-of-summer colour! I took some shots of some delicious goodies at the local farmers market, and here are the colour palettes they inspired. May the summer extend well into September...

the importance of a concept

Designing and decorating a room requires creativity and vision, and this can sometimes be even tougher when redecorating. It is easy to hit an inspiration roadblock when looking at an existing room with existing furniture, and getting off track in the middle of the project can often happen. That's why it is so important to map out a concept for the room from the beginning. Creating a design board with the colours and furniture you will use allows you to constantly go back and be reminded of the feel and mood you are trying to achieve. I always start with something that the homeowner loves, and use that as a jumping off point. It might be fabric in a favourite colour, a piece of art, or a decorative accessory.

Here is an example of a recent project I did, which I posted about this week. This was a master bedroom refresh, using much of the existing furniture. The design board shows the colours and feel we were going for, and although some things were tweaked, it kept us on track and the outcome was what we wanted.

If you would like to have a design board created for a room you would like to refresh, go to my online refresh page. I would love to help out!

a tale of two dressers

I've been busy while on vacation working on refreshing a few rooms for family and friends. These two dressers were old pieces that were useful, but not very pretty in a master bedroom. Nothing a little paint can't fix! 

I gave this tired old dresser a good sanding, then primed and painted on two coats of a greenish-gray latex Behr paint (I actually didn't like the beige-gray colour that I had picked out, so did some custom mixing by adding some black and dark green paint I had left over from a previous project).  I then sanded the edges to give it a distressed look and let some of the wood come through, and added new hardware. Voila!

On the tall dresser I spray-painted  a high gloss sage green Rustoleum after a little sanding and a coat of primer. I finished off with 3 coats of water-based high gloss Varathane.

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, and I will show you how they fit in the the refreshed master bedroom in my next post.  For now I'm off to paint more furniture. I wonder if my mom will let me at her hutch yet...

I'm also linked up on:

Domestically Speaking

Primitive & Proper

(aka)design

My Repurposed Life