Starting From Scratch - An Interior Edit.
My top tips for furniture shopping, navigating decision fatigue and a low down on our next project.
Good Morning my lovely reader! How are you this morning? After a bit of a ‘low’ week I am slowly pulling myself away from the grey cloud looming over me and into a fresher mindset. PMS is no joke and something I struggle with every single month. From the low mood, lack of focus, extreme fatigue and self critical mindset it can be a whirl wind, but it’s safe to say we are out of the woods. If anyone else is struggling with this just know that it does pass.
Aside from navigating all of the above, I have been buried in my Pinterest boards planning our next house projects. Off the back of a wonderful interview I did with Jasmine from Alterme Home, I have got my interior spark back.
Working on the house has definitely taken a back seat over the last few months with a lot of our focus on the garden, but over the next few months I am going to jump head first back into it.
A request that has popped up quite frequently since starting Seasons is an interior based entry and what a better time to write that than now. Starting with our bedroom. I have already filled a lot of holes cracks, sanded down and repainted the room in Lick 01, a lovely off white warm creamy colour with a very subtle hint of green. Next on the list is to fit the new carpet, which should be arriving today!
We are in a very fortunate position as my brother has a flooring company, which gives us a great advantage with supplier rates and fitting costs being a lot lower. The carpet we have gone for is the same as the guest room, I wanted it to feel super luxe and comfortable, a plush cream blank canvas for the bedrooms.
I have ordered a new chest of drawers in a lovely washed oak as well as a new armchair, wall light sconces and curtains.
This is where my top tips come in to play.
How I Shop For Furniture.
Whenever I am shopping for furniture or home accessories I will always do my research to find the best price (I hate spending too much money on something when I know I don’t need to.) Most of the time I have an idea of the exact piece I am looking for and will search for that on Google, utilising the shopping tool to search through multiple websites. Sometimes I will even screenshot a piece from an Instagram or Pinterest and do a Google image search to find the exact or similar item.
I will always use sites such as Etsy, Ebay and Facebook Marketplace to see if there is anything that ticks all my boxes at a better price. For example a chest of drawers, I may find the perfect style and size but it needs to sanded down or the handles need to be replaced.
It’s important to not over look an item that perhaps isn’t quite right as things can always be adjusted. The chest of drawers I ordered are perfect size and wood however I don’t love the handles, I will switch these out for something more fitting with our bedroom to get the look that I want.
As I said before I hate spending a lot of money on something when I know there will be a cheaper alternative. In one of the corners of our bedroom I want to create a seating area (mainly so Jack can pile up all his clothes on the chair) this will have an armchair and a full length mirror mounted to the wall. I knew I wanted a tub style armchair in a linen fabric, perhaps something with a little pattern to it as a stand out feature against the cream base of the room.
Pieces like this can cost upwards of a thousand pounds, which in my eyes is way too much! One of my favourite hacks, which I used for our sofas, is to find a style of furniture from Ikea and recover it in a more luxury fabric.
The armchair I found is perfect, exactly the style that I wanted and an amazing price, but the fabric doesn’t fit the bill. I came across two companies Bemz Designs and Comfortly that create beautiful furniture covers in all types of fabrics specific to Ikea. Such a great hack and something I try and tell everyone about!
I love styling our home and moving bits around to create new inspiring vignettes. One of my non negotiables with home purchases is to always make sure each piece could be used in any room of the house.
Do your research and don’t rush purchases.
Don’t over look an item if you can change hardware or re paint them.
Measure twice fit once. Alway’s measure the furniture into the space it saves so much hassle!
Moving onto my second project at the moment, as in true Lauren style I will always have multiple things on the go.
The Dressing Room.
My dream space and I feel so lucky to have this room. I spent months with my clothes stuffed into storage bags, dotted around the house, getting dressed felt like pure chaos and filming any styling content went flying out the window. I was desperate to get the wardrobes up and Ikea pax was my system of choice, a very popular option for built in wardrobes due to the flexibility, affordability and the ease of installing them.
Can you sense a but coming on…
Well, after having the wardrobes for a year I am ready for a change. I still highly recommend them as they are amazing value and give you that built in effect without hiring a carpenter.
But there are so things I would like to change.
The bedroom that I chose as the dressing room has a huge window which gives beautiful natural light from sunrise until the early afternoon. I noticed immediately that it had this really lovely calming aura to it.
Originally used as a bedroom it has lovely built in wardrobes that are really well made either side of the chimney alcove. Although the pax wardrobes have been great, they take up way too much space which makes the room feel quite narrow. I feel that I am lacking the ‘styling’ element to the room that I really wanted and although the storage is great I think it can be better distributed across the whole room.
My plan is to remove the pax and get back to a blank canvas, much like the above minus the old tatty carpet. I will enlist Jack to build some shelving in the centre alcove to display my bags and shoes. Switch from carpet to a laminate click system flooring.
We have already panelled one side of the room (up to the pax) so we will continue this along and the addition of coving to the ceiling will add detail and height. This will then all be painted in a lovely off-white cream, perhaps Farrow & Ball School House White.
A simple curtain pole with linen curtains to dress the window and a statement light in the centre, I love this one that I saw last night!
I will then dress the room with more storage. A beautiful chest of drawers opposite the cupboards to store my jeans, trousers, sports wear and vest tops. Which gives me a countertop surface to house a lamp for soft lighting, a vintage trinket tray, candles or photo frames.
I’m contemplating introducing a vanity island in the centre of the room with drawers to store my beauty products with an upholstered stool, but this is dependent on the space.
My aim for the room is to create a much more warm and feminine feel, inspired by the gorgeous Varley store on the Kings Rd, a space that is perfect for filming content but also feels inviting and interesting.
Let’s Talk Decision Making.
When it comes to fabrics, wood, flooring, paint samples it can be a mind field and decision fatigue is a real thing! Where do you start, how do you know it will all work, the huge scale of options can be overwhelming.
But, to make your experience easier when re-decorating a room here are my tips:
Start with an initial mood board. Take inspo images and collate them together to create the vibe of the room.
Create a colour palette - this could be tones, paint colours that you like or fabric samples of patterns. I aim for around 3 different colours throughout a room, most of the time for me they are on the neutral scale.
Order samples. Many websites offer free samples, take advantage of this! I have collected so many different types of samples I have a dedicated drawer for all of them. This helps a lot when you are mapping out the room, lay them all out together in different lights around the room to see what you think.
Test before you start. I have painted a room before and instantly regretted it meaning I have had to paint over it. Always apply some test patches to different parts of the room, paint looks totally different in all varying lights.
Start with the main canvas of the room. Mouldings, coving, painting and flooring is the best place to start before you start to think about dressing the space.
One of the main things I have learnt along this house journey has been to not be afraid to make mistakes.
If you find something isn’t working, re-visit it, don’t be afraid to change your mind.
Sometimes you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone with patterns and styles to find what you love.
Try not to get sucked into trends and stick to what you know and love. Your house is yours and however you choose to decorate it is an exploration of your own personal style and taste.
I will be documenting all of the house updates over on YT so make sure you are subscribed if you want to stay in the loop.
Lots of love,
L x
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I can’t wait to see how the bedroom comes together – you have such a lovely interior eye! I really like Vinterior for antique and vintage furniture. It’s an online secondhand marketplace, so wonderful for rehoming your own pieces too.
The ideas for the closet look so dreamy, I can only imagine how beautiful it will look when it becomes reality :)