"Although I speak from my own experience, I feel that no one has the right to impose his or her beliefs on another person. I will not propose to you that my way is best. The decision is up to you. If you find some point which may be suitable for you, then you can carry out experiments for yourself. If you find that it is off no use, then you can discard it." Dalai Lama...

Friday 13 April 2012

Butterflies and blueness :-)

January 2010 and we had finished Millys bedroom. 
Planned and designed with Milly in line with our budget - story of how we set about it here...

The end product looked like this.
Here is one of the pictures.


Her tastes have changed and she asked if we could redecorate. Once again she knew how she wanted it to look and after initially wanting a vintage look decided on a butterfly/vintage theme :-) 

Picture frames were sanded down and repainted and prints were found for those that required new ones.



I painted them with eggshell then waxed them and distressed them for a shabby chic effect.


Furniture was sanded. Quite a job getting the layers of purple gloss off! 



Initially - with an eye to costs in the future - I had persuaded Milly that a neutral colour of paint on the furniture would work best so that we wouldn't need to sand and paint them every time we decorated... She agreed but was really not too happy, she said it just wasn't her and she really wanted a particular shade of blue. When I thought about the options to sort things for her I decided that planning ahead to an imaginary time when the bedroom furniture might need painting was irrelevant to the decisions made about this project and that if they were ever valid reasons at a later date then we would deal with them then and solve the problem when/if  it actually was one....

Milly choose all the colours combinations for the frames and  we were lucky to have tester pots in the colours of the scheme she wanted. We bought new curtains and bedding cheaply. I searched the internet and showed her ones that fit her brief and were in budget and she choose the ones she liked. We had a couple of shopping trips but were lucky that she had already got a lot of items with butterflies on and in the new colour scheme so the main cost was paint. B&Q anywhere paint in antique white enabled Alan to paint easily on the walls and woodwork and reduced the time spent cutting in.
He took time off work and we cleared the room so he could get on whilst we were away. 
Very exciting to come back to a bright new room, then it was painting furniture and final titivating with all her special things collected over the years:-)) 

Take a walk through her bright new room...








A picture of Renesme from Breaking Dawn.
 Three butterfly images found online with peace hope and faith written on.


A picture we made a couple of years ago full of images of friends.
 We have plans to make a new updated one :-)






A new butterfly cushion cover bought from Ebay.




Edited to add... Storage and easy access ( and consequently easy tidy up ) for all the things she uses regularly were very important considerations when putting things back and a major de-clutter of boxes went on. Some things were too precious to throw out but were no longer needed to hand to we packed them lovingly into boxes to go in the loft for the time being. They may get edited in a few years or they may just stay to relish the box of memories in years to come :-) Even after a sort out ending with two large Ebay bags, beloved soft toys are to be found in boxes under the bed, on top of the wardrobe and yet more in wicker boxes on the landing! 



It has a very calm feel and it turns out she was right about the blue furniture :-)

1 comment:

Emma Wigginton said...

Milly - love it! You have such a good eye for colour and the butterflies are a beautiful idea x