Home makeover, the before and afters
I've been in my house almost two years now and if you follow my blog you would have seen the rooms be transformed one after the other but I've never done a full round up of my makeovers. Well here it is! The walk through my home with all the before and after photo's.
A lot of difference! Most of the work was finished last year but as you might have noticed I keep changing the rooms and move furniture around. The living room had a second makeover curtesy of an amazing West Elm sofa, that post will be online in a few weeks time. Like you heard me say in the video there are a few jobs I still need to do like paint the last bit of stairs and makeover the little room. Sure these all be featured on the blog!
Lets walk through the rooms again and lets start with the downstairs, the previous living and dining room I turned into my work space
We had the wall in between the rooms knocked out to create one big open space. On advice of the builder I exposed some of the brick work by chipping the plaster away and sealing the brick. The new white floor makes a big difference but what about the fire place?! Why would you ever want to paint that beautiful marble a weird shade of blue?? The brown tiles got painted with a white tiles paint and I put some new tiles in the base surround. These cute blue and white ones are from Topps Tiles. My dad build the window seat, a perfect spot for a morning cup of coffee and also my dogs favourite snoozing spot.
The downstairs, my studio, is the place were furniture moves around the most. The dining table has been on both sides of the room and my faux marble table has seen every corner wall! I really like the set up it is in now and I have 3 different tables/desks to work on creating projects for you.
As you can see I don't always get it right the first time round! The wallpaper on the left picture was the one I put up first but the warm beige colour and horizontal stripes really started bugging me after a few months. I took it off and replaced it with the grey faux wood cladding paper you see on the right picture. I love this wallpaper and it almost looks real! I love the pop of pink the chair gives to my otherwise very white heavy interior. The chair was a project from my first book Furniture Hacks.
All the makes you have seen in the video, click the links below:
All the makes you have seen in the video, click the links below:
Faux marble table
Lets move on to the kitchen
This was a fine example of an ex rental room stuck in the 90's. Wonky cupboards, plastic countertop, off white floor tiles and no character. But look at how bright and fun it is after its makeover!
What I've done in the kitchen:
Covered the cupboards with plywood
Give the cupboard hand made leather handles
Applied a kitchen wallpaper over the ugly tiles
Painted the countertop to look like granite
See I make mistakes too. I thought blue was a brilliant choice for the kitchen walls but it really started annoying me after a few weeks so a repaint was done! This super light grey works so much better with the plywood and patterned wallpaper.
I briefly showed you the hallway in the video, white paint, a blue door and stripe and a little shelf really made a difference here. Click here for the hallway makeover video.
Lets go to the bathroom!
Another room that had no style but after a few low budget DIY's it looks a whole lot better!
The bathroom got a new floor (vinyl self adhesive planks from B&Q) the ugly tiles got a coat of grey tiles paint and I build a vanity around the sink from some left over wood and made a new surround around the bath. The bath is new but as it was an online find it didn't blow the budget either. The surround has little doors so we can store or toiletries underneath the bath, space that is normally not used but helps to keep the room tidy.
I think that in small rooms you can make a big statement with wallpaper and I love this Victorian-esque Alice in Wonderland style print. Have a look at my bathroom makeover video here.
Lets walk through to the living room
This used to be one of the bedrooms but as it's so big we use it as a living room. Perfect as I claimed the downstairs as a work space :) I painted the walls with an Annie Sloan wall paint and had an art work printed on a wallpaper creating an amazing photo wall. The bookcase was build all along the far wall creating a lot of storage and gives us a place to put the tv. All this looks great but I had a bit of trouble getting the floor right as you can see in the image below. I thought cork would look great in this botanical inspired room but I went for a super cheap tiles I found on Ebay and made a big mistake not spending a bit more. Even paint couldn't make it look nice so a laminate floor was put in the night before a big family party.
This room had another makeover, more on that in a few weeks, as our old sofa never looked right in this space. The new one looks amazing and I can't wait to show you!
Want to have a peek into the guest room?
In this room I ripped up the ugly carpet and left the floor boards bare, I love the old paint stains on the wood. I put a few pieces of storage furniture in this room and the biggest build is the divan bed hack. I love the rustic look of this bed and by adding shelves you add so much extra storage to otherwise waisted space. one of the white walls got a slightly in your face patterened wall paper, that I of course hacked a bit by adding more colour.
And now my favourite makeovers of the house the master bedroom.
This was the last of the big rooms I tackled and you might have even seen it's makeover on ITV's the Home Game. A programme about people making over their homes and trying to add value to their property. My budget was laughable compared to the massive amounts of money the others had available but still my little room might quite the difference ;)
I started by ripping all the carpets out and repairing and painting the floor boards white. The walls all got a coat of white paint as well, its a dark room and could use all the help it could get from light reflective paint. Little graphic wall stickers add a bit of interest around the windows and as I couldn't find a wallpaper I liked I made my own! My old Ikea Malm bed got a rustic look and I hacked a plain rug into an Anthroplogy style one by adding home made tassels.
But the biggest build was the wardrobe, how amazing are the reclaimed doors!! I'm still impressed with myself I acually build the whole wardrobe by hand ;)
All the bedroom tutorials:
There are a lot of makes and makeover that never made the website as the rooms are not that inspiring like my little lean to. Just a few changes make a real difference though to this ugly room. At a recent Ikea makeover I even got my own hanging garden in this room now I will show you as soon as that has been published.
There you have it! My full before and after of my home, hope you like it. Have you done much work in your home? Are you a low budget DIY-er like me? Would love to see your makes! The Ikea images I talked about in the video can be found on the Ikea website here, here, here and here.
I'll be back next week with a new video in the mean time keep in the loop what I'm building over on my Instagram. See you next week xx Hester
