DIY

Simple DIY: Wooden Bead Curtain Tiebacks

I recently embarked on a little DIY project that I couldn’t resist sharing with you, as it literally took me five minutes to do!

I’d been meaning to make or buy new tiebacks for the linen curtains in our front drawing room and was seeing lots of lovely, Scandi style, DIY home accessories all over Pinterest, such as pot trivets and decorative garlands, beautifully handcrafted from natural wood beads. Their rustic finish lends such warmth to a room.

Anyway, one of the accessories I spotted was a set of wooden bead curtain tiebacks in an Etsy shop, but I couldn’t justify paying for something that I felt should be really straightforward to make! So, one trip to my local Søstrene Grene store later, and I was ready to make my own.

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A Little Front Door Makeover for Spring

I recently took it upon myself to give our front door a new lease of life with a lick of paint. Since we moved into our house just over a year ago now, the door has been a shade of pale mushroom – not exactly an offensive colour, but just lacking in a bit of personality. So, I thought it was about time we added our stamp to the front of the house. Who doesn’t love a dose of kerb appeal as they approach their house from the street?!

I had always envisaged painting the front door a gorgeous, deep navy (i.e. something like this), however we are trying to stick to a budget whilst we go about updating and redecorating the house, so head ruled over heart and I resorted to using up a tin of another (still gorgeous) Farrow & Ball colour I had leftover from a little upcycling project I completed last year. The shade is called Stiffkey Blue, a pretty well known paint colour, thanks to the trend for ‘going dark’ in our interiors that’s all over Pinterest these days.

In typical Farrow & Ball fashion, Stiffkey Blue is described as being ‘naturally dramatic’ and is named after a north Norfolk beach where the mud is this particular shade of blue. Our house was built in the mid ’30s and the front door is original to it, so a lick of paint in what I would term a quite traditional, yet contemporary, shade, would be just what it needed to lift it a little into the present day. In addition, the face of our house is covered in a trailing ivy which turns a beautiful shade of russet red in late summer through to Autumn and I reckoned this shade of blue would look stunning against it – time will tell!

I thought I would guide you briefly through the steps I took to paint the door, because a good old DIY how-to is always helpful, especially at this time of year, when many of us are turning our attention to Spring jobs outdoors.

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Tutorial: Tab Top to Pencil Pleat Curtains Makeover

This is just a quick post to show you a little sewing project I embarked upon recently. When we moved into our new home in February last year, I had to think of an affordable way to dress the windows, and no more so than in our drawing room, which is dual aspect, meaning two sets of curtains were required. Each window is fairly tall and wide so I knew I would either have to buy a load of fabric to make curtains with (the expensive option) or source readymade ones which I reckoned would be nigh on impossible given the window dimensions.

So I took myself off to Ikea, the big blue and yellow friendly giant offering solutions to many a décor problem, where I found a lovely set of readymade, long curtains (here) with a nice linen-like look and feel to them. I knew they’d be perfect for the job in hand, EXCEPT that they were tab top, which I’m not a huge fan of. Unless you live in a country cottage or student flat, I don’t really think tab tops quite cut it on the style front…

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20 Essentials for Building up your Interior Decorating Tool Kit

Whether it’s a spot of minor interior decorating you enjoy, upcycling the odd piece of second hand furniture or really getting stuck into a big room makeover, one thing is certain; you need to have the right tools for the job close at hand. There are plenty of great pieces of kit out there to help you make your interior decorating a success, but there are also everyday objects around the house that can play as important a role in ensuring your decorating project doesn’t become a DIY disaster!

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Potting Shed Makeover

I have to say, I’m absolutely loving this recent Spring weather we’ve been having here. I just want it to last for weeks and weeks, but alas, here in Northern Ireland, that is rarely the case! On the positive side, however, I suppose it makes me appreciate the settled weather when it’s here and its often short-lived nature motivates me to get outside into the garden and do stuff before those pesky April showers make another appearance…

It was during one such spell of recent dry weather that my husband and I decided to repaint our lovely, but very much flaky and deprived potting shed in the corner of the garden. When I first viewed our house, it was one of the features I instantly fell for, as I could see bags of potential in it and it just oozed such yesteryear charm. At the moment, we use it as a store house for gardening tools and logs, however recently the children and I planted out some seeds in preparation for our veg patch come Summer (more on that soon), as it really does heat up quite nicely on a sunny day. I can also imagine it as a sort of summerhouse – it will eventually require a little work on tidying up the paintwork on the inside, however plonk a chair in there on a sunny day with a coffee and a book and I’ll be in garden heaven.

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Weekend Project: A little painted mirror

I don’t know about you, but for me, Spring, with its longer evenings and fresher, brighter days, is making me feel newly energised and motivated to tackle some mini projects around the house that I’ve been meaning to do for ages (you know how it is, they’ve been queued up on that never-ending list I have inside my head, probably not dissimilar to yours!)

One such job I have been planning to do for a while is to repaint an old mirror that a friend donated to me a few weeks ago. She had no place for it in her own home, yet thought it had some potential to be ‘prettified’, and so it arrived on my doorstep one day, ready for its mini makeover!

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Ready? Get Set! Decorate! How to kickstart a decor scheme

One of the questions I often hear from people wishing to redecorate in their home is “where do I start?” Deciding to redo a room is one thing, but the actual process of doing it is quite another. However, don’t fret, help is at hand! There are a number of ways to approach redecorating, whether it is a complete room overhaul you’re embarking on or a straightforward refresh job. Here I hope to impart some useful tips to get you started down the right track…

Consider your colour scheme

Choosing the base colour of your room scheme is the first step in deciding how to redecorate. Most of us have a particular colour that strongly appeals to us, so opt for something you love as you are more likely to use varying tones of it throughout your home, thus creating a more harmonious, linked up overall feel. Do consider the views out of the room into the hallway, landing or an adjoining room, as it creates a better ‘flow’ to the space if the colour palette is of a similar or complementary tone. Moving from a duck egg painted living room into a deep mustard yellow hallway will only serve to make your home feel disjointed and incohesive. The whole space needs to appear connected and flowing therefore it is important to think of the home in its entirety when decorating. Perhaps the colour you opt for is based on an existing carpet or piece of furnishing that you cannot change and therefore must incorporate into the design. Similarly, you may own a painting that is a real statement piece in a living room – pick one or two colours from it and use them to build up the interior decor scheme….

Easy Home Updates

Ten years ago (and before the arrival of children), we bought a decent sized three bed semi into which the two of us and our joint belongings fitted just nicely. Jump forward to today and three children later and it has become a much ‘cosier’ fit, in fact you could say we’re overspilling!

Not entirely surprising then that we recently took the big decision to put our beloved home on the market with a view to moving our little family somewhere more spacious and better suited to our growing needs. So, as well as being engulfed in the process of constantly tidying and prepping the house for prospective buyers, I’ve been busy viewing potential properties to buy. Well… it’s certainly been an eye opener for me as to how many perfectly good houses out there are in dire need of a little time and love to bring them bang up to date. A lick of paint here and a declutter there would not go amiss yet many people simply do not realise that giving your home a simple refresh will not only in all probability increase their home’s overall market value, but more importantly, will make it a much better place to live.

Anyway… looking at houses and preparing my own home for sale has made me think a lot about how we can easily and effectively update our own homes within a budget. Making those little changes that renew our love for a space we spend so much of our lives in….