Oak Road Reno Series| Master Bedroom

Welcome to the Oak Road Reno Series on my blog!! This has been in the making for over a year, but the ole boyfriend is a bit slow on the reno front unless I actually start the work, buy the materials and then finish the works (in other words, its been down to me and whilst juggling a Training Contract, LPC and Masters not a lot happened). 

If you have followed my Instagram for a little while you'll be aware that we moved into our first home in February 2019. After purchasing our home we didn't really do an awful lot with it until around 6-7 months later. 

I was feeling a bit fed up of having half finished room and when lockdown hit properly I decided that I would spend all our spare cash on ensuring those rooms we had started would be fully finished. 

Initially with the bedroom I wanted beach vibes inspired by one of the hotels we stayed in whilst at Greece. I wanted white walls, sand coloured wood floors, slowly linen curtains and a wooden bed or bed with a feature headboard. That was the inspo and I had my pinterest board ready to go. Then, and I'm sue you'll all know form my moaning on Instagram, the whirlwind that is my stubborn boyfriend hit and decided that beach vibes and boho chic was 'steggy' (Insert eyeball here, this word is the bane of my life and used whenever he doesn't like something. In his language I think this translates to 'crap'). 

It was back to the drawing board and I decided to look at things he likes... So we started with Manchester. Now I have a whole post on this but if you know me you know that I was not keen on MCR being our home AT ALL!! I know love it so was able to pick out the bees element and roll with this. He LOVES grey - Our tastes are completely different, I love quirky and bold he loves grey and minimalistic. Opposites attract and all that jazz. I kept the walls White as I couldn't stand the magnolia and off me and my roller went on a two day epic painting spree (I will add he did help paint on one of those days). 

Following my painting I was left with white walls and a horrible murky brown carpet as you can see from the above. I cannot believe that the previous owners painted everywhere else magnolia with grey carpets and used BROWN in the MASTER BEDROOM... Unfortunately, I couldn't afford to replace the carpet straight away and instead decided to 'dye' the carpet using Dylon. Now I have seen every man and his dog use Dylon dyes on their carpets and be absolutely fine. I did it and all it was did was turn the underlay mouldy and dye the carpet a weird too dark brown grey that looked rubbish. 

By this time though, I was fed up of being the only one putting effort into renovating our home and I downed my tools after ripping up the carpet (yes on my own again!! You'll see a recurring theme here) to allow the underlay to dry out. That was how our bedroom remained, being a really awful place to sleep and honestly having such an unfinished room really got me down. 

During lockdown I kicked myself up the ass and looked into styling the bedroom. I had to work with what was already in the room as much as possible as we had white walls, no carpet, a large dark grey bed, dark grey curtains and dark metal curtain poles. I wanted to incorporate bees and yellow somehow into the space to brighten it up and make it less GREY. 

I ordered our flooring from Burts Online. Now, the flooring isn't actually wood and is lino. We looked at real wood flooring (which is the dream), but as we decided we are looking to move into our forever home, the one that we will stay in until we are grey, we wanted to do it cheaply as we won't get to have the benefit of it for long. You can order four samples of different floorings and have them sent to you for free. We chose four different Linos and you lovely lot kindly helped us select our fave, Alba from the Burts modern flooring range. The flooring cost around £116 in total. Then we also ordered underlay to be informed by my Dad that if you are putting vinyl down, you need a hard flat surface not soft. SHIT! I also couldn't return the underlay as it was cut to size so that ended up being donated and we had to go to B&Q and get laminate flooring underlay. A disclaimer on this I am allergic as fuck to this stuff... Literally came out in hives and couldn't breathe, had to get my dad down in an emergency to lay the vinyl. It was worth the near anaphylactic shock though. 

I was so happy with how the flooring turned out and really impressed with the Customer Service from Burts. We have all our wooden floor choices chosen for our next home too and will definitely use them again. The cheapest I have found for flooring and extremely good quality with no issues. 

The unit is the Malm unit from IKEA, a range of furniture that features heavily in our dressing room. The Malm units are always easy to fit together and quite spacious for drawer size. Our room then features a few homely touches: 

Rug - B&M £9.99 

Basket - Homesense £14.99

Elephone light - ASDA (purchased years ago for around £10) 

Cacti - IKEA - £6 

Unit - IKEA Malm range £60

Curtains - B&M £19.99 (blackout range, floor length) 

Curtain Poles - B&M £9.99

Macabre hanging - Chickidee £15

In this photo you can see the cacti and elephant better along with our little candle holder, also from IKEA and I think this cost me around £2 when we moved into our flat. The TV is also an old TV that Andy has owned for a few years, we intend to replace it for a large flatscreen hung on the walls but for now it isn't on the urgent list. 

I created the Wall art myself using £1 frames from Poundland and wall paper samples from B&M, I had intended to have a feature wall hence the wallpaper but that didn't happen and I decided to recycle the sample into something useful for our home. The peg board is simply our pet names for each other. I believe these came about during the time of Pokemon Go - I shall try and find an embarrassed emoji to insert here haha! It just has the date we got together as well, not that I need reminding of it all the time but it is a nice touch when you see the date and think how far we have come together. I mean we own our home which is CRAZY! 

Next is the bed area itself, I have listed the necessary bits below: 

Shelves - B&M £9.99 for 3 

Cactus - IKEA part of the set listed above

Vase - ASDA this is to be replaced for something else shortly. 

Plant and Pot - IKEA £9 

Bed frame - Groupon £100

Bedding - ASDA £18

White Pillows - Chickidee £3 each in the sale

Grey Pillows - TESCO £6 each

Comforter - ASDA £20

Side tables - B&M (side tables used as nightstands due to an awkwardly spaced room) £10

Basket - ASDA (years ago)

I love how the yellow pops against the grey and just brightens the room up. Whilst all grey is very stunning for some homes it just felt wrong for us both and that little pop of colour (whatever you chose) has become a little bit of a trend at the moment and is a way to add a quirky twist to an old classic look. 

This cosy corner was created using a Wilkinson storage box for £22.00. I have two of these in our home, one in our bedroom which stores all our bedding (yes it doubles up as a seat and storage) and one in our porch area. I have popped two £6 B&M cushion on top to create a padded back and a little blanket I have owned for years to make the area cosier. I tend to push this across to the corner and sit on the Ottoman reading a good book when I fancy an earlier night but not heading to bed. 

In my opinion, no room is complete with our a candle, wax melt or reed diffuser of some descriptions. I tend to have a candle or wax melt burner in every room with a different scent burner. Each room in your home is used for something different and scents can really affect how you feel and your memories/ what your body associates the room with. For me, I love to burn relaxing scents such as lavender in my bedroom. Our current favourite brand is Amelia Daniels - I will be writing a whole post about this amazing brand very very soon - but I couldn't not feature their fragrances have completely changed the feel and vibe of this room. I burn their Lavender, Chamomile and Vanilla melt in our bedroom and usually leave this on for around 30 minutes before bed as I am doing my nighttime routine. The room is filled with the most relaxing scent and usually I am asleep within 30 minutes, it has been a game changer to this room and it now feels like home. You can check out more of Amelia Daniel's product here - Definitely recommend ALL of the wax melts and candles!! 

We have finally finished our bedroom and we couldn't be happier with it. I really believe that your bedroom can affect your sleep and your whole mood and outlook on life as it is one of the rooms you spend the most time in. For us, since we have decorated, found a good routine and a scent that promotes relaxation our bedroom is our little sanctuary. 

If you are thinking about doing some renovations or have a room that has really annoyed you during lockdown I 100% recommend taking the plunge as it has been life changing. 

I hope you have all liked our first renovation post in our reno series. I have a few more rooms to pop into the series and if you need any more information on anything featured just send me a message and I'll be happy to help. 

Until Next Time 

T

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