Well, it’s been a while since I shared some snaps of my home renovation so I thought it was about time I posted some more horrid ‘before’ pics and gorgeous ‘after’ photos. I actually decided to dial-down my DIY efforts during August, for fear of missing out on summer altogether! Nonetheless, I really wanted to get my spare room into shape so that I could have friends to visit and enjoy some fun days out together.
Plus, the lovely folk at Inspired Wallpaper heard about my project and have offered a £50 gift voucher for my readers to win – so now you too can transform your home with some gorgeous wallpaper designs – read on to enter and find out how we gave our guest room a vintage-inspired makeover this summer…
In all honesty, this room was ALL my husband’s idea. I can’t take the credit; the man had a plan, and we simply did c turned it into reality. Ever since we moved in, hubby had the idea to create an arts and crafts style bedroom to tie in with our carved-wood bed (inherited from his grandma). Of course, as soon as I heard this, I got stuck in with the research and read this article on how to create a Pinterest perfect home before getting stuck into some serious pinning. 
Here’s what the room looked like before we started… 
We knew that a patterned feature wall behind the headboard would help the room to look more spacious (patterns all round would have been too much in this small double room) so we searched for some William Morris style wallpaper. After scrolling through the Inspired Wallpaper website for a few minutes, we found our dream feature wall. Call off the search! Crown’s Flora Nouveau wallpaper in peacock green was the ideal pattern.
A little more digging revealed that the pattern was originally designed around 1910 – the same era as grandma’s bed and grandad’s tallboy wardrobe – perfect! The pattern is inspired by plants and flowers but in that classic Art Nouveau style of the time. This wallpaper has a light metallic sheen in the gold sections to bring it up to date and the slight reflectiveness stops the wallpaper (and dark wood furniture, for that matter) from feeling too oppressive.
We only needed to two rolls to do the wall, so at £15.99 per roll this was a really low-cost way to make a big impact in the room. It inspired our choice of paint colours too; we took a sample of the paper to Homebase and scanned the dusky duck-egg colour to get a great colour-matched paint for the side walls. 
On the opposite wall we used a very dark bluey-grey to match the dark tones in the wallpaper. We couldn’t get a good colour match for this dark tone using the paint scanner, but when we popped into B&M later the same day, we found the ideal colour already on the shelf for just £10 (it’s a Johnstones basic paint).
We umm’d and ahh’d about the flooring and decided to give the floorboards a lick of paint. The plan was to possibly carpet the room in the future, but when we saw how great the colour looked (just using the same dark paint we used on the wall) we decided to give it a coat of varnish and keep it.
We also – naughtily – used the same flat matt duck egg wall paint on the woodwork, window sill and doors. Okay, I’m sure there’s a reason why you need special wood-work paint, but I wasn’t going to pay for more tins of paint than needed! Now all the elements of the room blend together and your eye isn’t distracted by door.
Here are some ‘sneak peek’ photos of the wallpaper…
All the pieces of furniture and soft furnishings have since been added, so I’ll be sharing some photos of the finished room over the coming weeks so keep an eye out on my blog. And now onto my exciting autumn giveaway!
The fabulous folk at Inspired Wallpaper.com would love to give one lucky winner a whopping £50 voucher to spend on ANYTHING you like from their beautiful website. Whether you want to create a stunning feature wall, transform a whole room or use some gorgeous patterns in your DIY upcycling projects I’m sure you’ll be able to find a use for this £50 gift voucher. There are plenty of ways to enter via the Rafflecopter entry form below and be sure to let me know what decorating project is next on your to-do list – I can’t wait to hear your plans!
Giveaway is open to UK residents only and runs 7th September – 1st October 2017. 1 winner will be chosen at random via Rafflecopter. Good luck everyone!
Some items in this blog post have been gifted to me and the pink links indicate a gifted product, affiliate link or information source. All thoughts and opinions in this post are based on my own experience and I am not responsible for your experience 🙂
38 responses
Hi Silvana, Sure thing – the dark grey paint we used was Johnstone’s Steel Smoke and the duck-egg blue was a colour that we had mixed up in Homebase. They scanned a section of the wallpaper and then recreated the colour in paint and it was a close match! We added white venetian blinds to the windows with thick 50mm slats. Hope this helps! 🙂
Hi I’ve just come across your decorating using the peacock green willia m Morris wallpaper, I know it was a while back but can you remember the paint make and colours used, also what did you use for the window, curtains, blinds?
Thank you
Kind Regards
Silvana
My hallway – it hasnt been done for years and it really needs an overhaul as its the first thing people see when they enter my flat
We’re going to do the lounge – floorboards, painting, new furniture
I’ve just bought a new build house so I’ll be doing my living room, downstairs toilet and bedroom when i’ve moved in and my walls have ‘settled’ 🙂
just finished my daughters bedroom, will be finishing off our kitchen/utilty next
The bathroom needs gutting
My 2 girls 7 ans 8 share a room and I think it’s time we got rid of the winniw the pooh paper… they are NOT impressed.
a new kitchen
Our hallway is our next decorating project
I am planning on starting my sitting room again as it is looking a little tired and now the children are a little older, I am able to go for something a little more sophisticated
We are in middle of renovating our sitting room, currently have floors ripped up while we concrete them!
decorate the bathroom.
I just bought some new bedding for my guest bedroom which has a beautiful vintage feel of flowers & birds. I would love to add wallpaper to the feature wall behind the bed and pick up another colour from the wallpaper to paint the other walls (much as you have done). I am also planning on making some appliqued cushions for the bed.
Love the wallpaper! I have just finished painting all the radiators on our ground floor, which now look like new. My next project is to make curtains for our guest room and maybe give it a coat of paint to freshen it up.
We are hoping to start on our spare loft room and tiny bathroom. Love that wallpaper, it looks amazing!
I’m looking to do my hallway and stairs next 🙂
I’d like to tackle my kitchen next.
Actually my whole house needs to be re-decorated! But one step at a time, so dining room would look fab with a feature wall with some snazzy wallpaper
I’m planning to build some shelves to put up in my kitchen!
my whole has is currently slowly in the process of being updated 🙂 my bedroom is next
The living room
My bedroom needs a makeover
Great inspiring transformation, the same, my bedroom needs some personality x
the chimney breasts in both rooms
Your room looks fabulous now! Next on my decorating list is a bedroom where my son currently is. He’s moving out and I can’t wait to get started on decorating it and move my nice pieces of furniture back in there.
I’m planning to revamp my bookshelves next – they look a bit tired
Redecorating my bedroom
My bedroom really needs decorating.
I’m up cycling a table & chairs
I’m planning to do the living room and had not considered wallpaper until now x
I am planning to decorate our bedroom and I absolutely love your wallpaper!! I was thinking of muted greys originally but I am now thinking something much more bold like this would be fab! xx
We’re moving house and buying a renovation project so I will be dipping into your blog for ideas along the way!
Spare room next week & our bedroom October/November!
We’re planning to redecorate our spare room next.
The wallpaper looks great with your furniture a perfect match!
we’re trying to sort the bathroom
What a fantastic difference to the room! That wallpaper is amazing too, I love it.
I would love some wallpaper for my cheap ikea table that I want to retop….