Decorating a bedroom (it’s harder than you think)

I was recently asked by a friend to give some advice on decorating her little girl’s bedroom. I was initially flattered as I dearly enjoy redecorating but I’m no interior designer. However having quickly agreed I almost immediate regretted it when she said…’Brilliant! I know you’re so good at getting bargains, I can’t wait to see what you find’.

Hmm… so now I had to help on design while keeping to a stringent budget as well. This favour suddenly felt distinctly like a job (albeit unpaid). Plus my friend doesn’t live near me, so I’m giving this ‘advice’ from afar.

Here was my brief

A midsleeper bed with a tent underneath.

A wardrobe with drawers (can’t be too expensive).

Fun chair for reading.

Bookcase.

Rug.

purple-pinkBed

Doesn’t sound too bad, but wait a minute what the heck is a midsleeper bed? I had immediate visions of some kind of snooze pod made of railway sleepers, but a tent as well? A midsleeper is basically a bed that looks to all intends and purposes like a bunk bed but instead of a second mattress at the bottom there’s usually a desk or play area.

I managed to find a Steens wooden midsleeper bed complete with tent at Clever Clicker. I believe this is also a fairly decent price for such a thing.

Wardrobe

The wardrobe I found significantly harder to source, either designs we liked were too high in price or the price was right and the build quality was low. In the end I found a really nice 1920s wardrobe on eBay which my friend collected and plans to paint. Obviously more work but the entire thing cost around £100 and they’ve ended up with a really solid durable piece of furniture. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture to show you at the moment as the room isn’t finished.

imb-32100026-m01Chair

I found a bread chair! Ha ha now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write. This little chair looked so wonderful and whimsical, in fact I rather fancy one myself. It has to be shipped from Japan but I think it’s worth it.

7193240_R_Z001A_UC1308965Bookcase

We settled on this Mia Dolls house bookcase from Argos. Unfortunately it’s only made from chipboard although it does look very sweet. It was bought at a special offer price and I have to admit that the full price does seem rather steep for what it is.

rummet-rug-low-pile__0152080_PE310385_S4Rug

Good old Ikea to the rescue with this fabulous Rummet rug. Wonderfully girly and reasonably priced too.

 

In conclusion I’m not so sure I’d recommend helping a friend to decorate, it turns out to be harder than you might think 😛