Our study has been our first big project in our new home, it’s been slow going though; we’ve currently been in our house for more than 10 months and it seems as though hardly anything has changed.
From the wallpaper to the plumbing, many things have gone wrong and we’ve had to deviate from our original plans. Although it’s still not 100% complete, it’s enough for us to move onto the next room. All that’s left is the fitting of the blinds and the replacing of some old furniture, but these jobs will have to wait until our bank accounts recover from the constant blows that home improvement inflicts on them.
We started moving some furniture back into the room on Friday (after the new carpet was fitted on Wednesday) and most excitingly (to me) is that I have moved in my brand new stool from Mason Du Monde, and finally taken off its protective cover.
Of course I didn’t get the wallpaper I wanted, but we improvised and it looks good. I originally purchased two rolls of Cole & Son’s Columbus wallpaper – which is the same as the Melville wallpaper but just without the sea creatures.
Columbus by Cole and Son
It was a paper that Paul and I actually agreed on (the only one). I bought the rolls from John Lewis, where I’d ordered some wallpaper samples, however, after paying for the two rolls I was contacted and told they wouldn’t be able to get them for me until the end of March. I cancelled my order and phoned around lots of wallpaper companies and they all had to order them from Cole and Son (who didn’t have any) rather than actually stocking it themselves. I didn’t want to wait that long, so we opted to paint instead because we couldn’t agree on any other paper.
I’d heard some good things about Valspar paint and opted to try it out. But also because we didn’t realise that B&Q had stopped selling Crown and Dulux paint when we went to get some. We originally opted for two colours: Aged Parchment and Urban Haze, intending to have three walls in the darker Aged Parchment and the outside wall in Urban Haze but in the middle of painting we changed our minds and kept the outside wall white instead.
After a very long, tiring day of watching Paul and I move furniture around, Charlie (the cat) had to have a lay down to recoup his energy.
Here are a couple of before and after photos, very much hoping you can guess which is which.
It’s a relief to be rid of those wretched stencilled teddy bears.
Paul made the wonky doors sound like they were utterly and very noticeably crooked, but when he hung them to show me they were actually fine. Yes, they weren’t perfect but we’re hoping – in the far future- to turn this cupboard into the entrance of a staircase leading to the attic (so it’s not the end of the world).
The room is still rather bare at the moment but it won’t be long until we put up the pictures and shelving and fill it with all of our things.
For my upcoming birthday, my parents have very generously bought me an expensive desk from Mason Du Monde, which was ordered today. It will be a few weeks before it arrives but I’m over the moon and thoroughly excited. Will have more pictures when it arrives.
