Sleep & Sweet Dreams

Hi all,

Bedroom ideas: Peaceful restful sleep is my aim for the bedroom, I want something that feels calm & uncluttered, warm yet I would like to carry on the white theme.

I was very sure that I wanted a white metal bed mainly the white metal Ikea bed & it really needed to be a king size, our small double bed that were in at the moment has been upsetting me for many months. I'm married to a bed hogger!!! 

All seemed simple enough & then the budget came & ruined my dream, so in the end after begin out bid on three beds in as many weeks I decided to see what else was out there & I found this.

Well its not my dream bed, its a little boring & is very cream, It was a BTW for £30 I thought at that stage its better to have a bed than no bed at all so I bought it. I really wanted it to be white, so I did some research into what type of paints you can use on metal and decided on Annie Sloane in "Old White" I'm going to use some clear & dark wax in places and rough it up with some sandpaper so it will looks weathered. 

The other main factor in the bedroom is storage, me & my husband both have a lot of clothes. 

We need separate wardrobes & at least a chest of draws each. 

Storage is expensive! I've not worked out the storage ins & outs yet other that I'm going to use the Rast Ikea chest of drawers as bedside tables. 

I found the Hemnes storage bench on gumtree for £25 which will look lovely sat at the end of the bed as an Ottoman great bedding storage! 

A Clear Midnight

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou
lovest best.
Night, sleep, and the stars. 

Walt Whitman

I love this poem I will have to print it out on some lovely paper & have it in a fame somewhere in our bedroom.

Kx

Live, Eat, Relax, Entertain & Nap

Hi again,

I wanted to start with the Living room, I very much wanted a clam white space with comfy sofas and all our books and hopefully somewhere to hide my husbands awful speakers!

Sofa wise the Ikea 3 seater Ektrop sofa was what I wanted but our new livingroom is pretty big so I needed two one to sit in front of each window but at £300 each that was pretty much our whole budget so, the idea was to find them second hand and buy new covers which are £75 each which really brings the cost down.

After much trolling I found one on Ebay and got it for £20! I was so chuffed! its was brown and very badly photographed and not listed as a Ikea 3 seater Ektrop sofa which really helped!

The other one was £25 buy it now, it had just been listed and I was searching quite late at night I was just lucky, again this one was not white but for £25! Who cares! 

Oh the difference of good lighting!

Other bits and bobs...
We were given and old chair by some friends that I plan to paint white and I will be making lots of cushions from burlap, linen and a few out of  this Ikea fabric I just love it! We have been given a coffee table by my Aunt and that will also be getting painted. We have a big bookcase which will be use as a room divider to hide an office area.  
We are going to use 2 Ikea Rast chest of drawers to put the TV on with lots of  DVD storage and hidden cables. They are a bargain at £20 I'm very happy to get these new as I don't think there worth hunting for. 
There are lots of really good Rast hacks I'm undecided what to do with ours I was thinking white with curved beat up chrome handles but I seen a few that have been waxed with dark wax & they look really good.  

I love this its my favourite!

My husband really likes this one I'm not sure.

Maybe for the bedroom......

I will post pictures of the Living room and do before and after's and maybe some step by steps of the TV unit and coffee table makeovers.

Kx

New home! New blog!

Hello,

This blog is about us (Me & my husband) & our new home & the journey to buy as little new stuff to furnish and decorate it as possible! Our budget has a lot to do with it we have been living in various furnished flats for the last 6 years and we have very little useful furniture. As we are moving into to our very own little house in about a week, we needed pretty much everything from beds and sofas to storage and pretty things to make it feel like a home.
So After many many hours spent on ebay, Gumtree, freecycle & preloved I cant believe that I ever consider going to Ikea and spending upwards & beyond of £2000 to furnish our little two bed house.
I will post a list of everything I was going to buy and then the things I have so far managed to find and how much i have paid for them and then over the next few weeks I will be renovating and tweaking them to our style(well mine really my husband is very much lacking his inner home & garden stylist). I will link my Pintrest so you can see what my inspiration is and the looks that I'm hoping to achieve.

This was my dream..........

So here it is the IKEA List...........

Product Description	Unit Price	Quantity	Price
EKTORP Three-seat sofa, Blekinge white Width: 218 cm Depth: 88 cm Height: 88 cm Article Number : 398.758.49	£295	update	£590	delete	Move to shopping list
LIATORP Coffee table, white, glass Length: 93 cm Width: 93 cm Height: 51 cm Article Number : 500.870.72	£180	update	£180	delete	Move to shopping list
ASPELUND Wardrobe with 3 doors, white Width: 131 cm Depth: 54 cm Height: 190 cm Article Number : 801.572.14	£140	update	£140	delete	Move to shopping list
ASPELUND Wardrobe with 2 doors, white Width: 91 cm Depth: 54 cm Height: 190 cm Article Number : 101.598.34	£100	update	£100	delete	Move to shopping list
HEMNES Chest of 3 drawers, white Width: 110 cm Depth: 51 cm Height: 97 cm Article Number : 200.678.29	£100	update	£300	delete	Move to shopping list
HEMNES Chest of 8 drawers, white Width: 162 cm Depth: 51 cm Height: 97 cm Article Number : 000.678.30	£200	update	£200	delete	Move to shopping list
HEMNES Dressing table with mirror, white Width: 100 cm Depth: 50 cm Height: 159 cm Article Number : 101.212.28	£190	update	£190	delete	Move to shopping list
HEMNES TV bench, white Width: 149 cm Depth: 47 cm Height: 57 cm Article Number : 601.762.99	£190	update	£190	delete	Move to shopping list
LINDVED Side table, white Diameter: 50 cm Height: 68 cm Article Number : 301.256.97	£15	update	£30	delete	Move to shopping list
LEIRVIK Bed frame with slatted bed base, white Length: 209 cm Width: 168 cm Footboard height: 98 cm Article Number : 598.876.29	£120	update	£120	delete	Move to shopping list
HEMNES Day-bed frame, white Length: 211 cm Width: 87 cm Height: 86 cm Article Number : 500.803.15	£260	update	£260	delete	Move to shopping list
HEMNES Console table, white Length: 159 cm Width: 40 cm Height: 74 cm Article Number : 001.762.78	£160	update	£160	delete	Move to shopping list
HEMNES Bench, white Length: 83 cm Width: 37 cm Height: 53 cm Article Number : 502.236.25	£50	update	£50	delete	Move to shopping list

Enter your postcode to calculate your
delivery cost & earliest estimated delivery date.

Total For This Order

£2,510

So After looking through how much we could afford the Ikea price tag was very much out of reach! 
I started looking on ebay and found lots of the things I wanted from my "List" within a 25 mile stretch and I started bidding, only to find that I wasn't to prepared to pay as much as some other people for old Ikea stuff! I was constantly being out bid and on a few occasions I was tempted to stretch my budget, but Christmas was coming and we really couldn't afford to so I stopped typing in Ikea and spent many many hours looking through listing and found that its the stuff thats been badly listed that I needed to look for and is how I have spent my January(not fun at all!) but over the last week or so all the things I have bought have been collected and its very exciting to see how much I have got for so little. 
The other things that have really inspired me are Pintrest & Ikea hackers I have found so many way to modify things we did have & some many great ideas for cheap pieces for furniture if we do have to buy them new which will still give me the look I wanted for a fraction of the cost.

I will post what I have Bought and my plans for it in Part 2................

See you soon Kx

P.S this is my Pintrest
http://pinterest.com/dollybirds86/