Things I like

Last week I remembered that I was meant to write a post about our living room once we had painted it (as mentioned in the post I did about our bedroom and music room last year). Well, we (Chris mainly) painted it last summer and it was a bit of a mammoth task as we had to try and work around all the furniture and take our massive 1970’s German wall unit apart (it’s modular and is made up of 10 pieces) and as a consequence I decided that when we want to sell the flat and move out I’m having nothing to do with any of the palaver surrounding painting the walls magnolia in order not to scare people off or shifting the furniture. Anyhoo, here are some quite bad pics of it all, I will try and do some better ones once Spring is here and the light isn’t the dull grey it has been for the best part of 3 months. I was worried that the mustard might be a bit dark, but in the daylight it’s quite a warm and relaxing colour.

The bar area

The opposite end of the living room to the bar, kitchen to the right behind the beaded curtain, plus pooch and budgie

Another view of the window end of the living room

Ridiculous 1970's West German wall unit, the bar across the middle is an in built radio and speakers with a record and tape player in the top drawer

Dining area plus hamsters and piles of books / sewing stuff

Two and a half years ago when Chris and I were buying our flat we had lots of plans as to how we wanted to decorate and furnish it. Chris’s last flat looked amazing where he had used lots of bold colours and stripes, and we wanted to do a better version of that knowing that the flat was properly going to be ours and that the stripes wouldn’t have to be painted over for a long time. The House Book by Conran (1970’s edition) was/is a massive influence, as are various other books in our possession such as Decorating With Confidence by Jose Wilson and Arthur Leaman (1973). It was all very exciting and sometimes when the plans started to get out of hand, I had to remind us that we were moving into a flat in Southsea, and not a gigantic modular 70’s architectural masterpiece set in the side of a hill overlooking the Adriatic. Or this piece of amazingness: Deerhurst Road.

Obviously as soon as we moved in, laziness took over and not much got done for two years, bar managing to paint one of the bathrooms and do the base colours for our bedroom. However, over the course of the Easter weekend, Chris sprung into action and we (well, Chris mainly) managed to properly decorate both bedrooms. To complement the curtains in our bedroom we decided to go for green and brown stripes, and in the second bedroom / music room we’ve gone for a warm caramel on the walls with orange and brown stripes. The colours match the curtains in that room, which are Chris’s favourite out of all the sets we’ve got and were purchased from Ebay a few years ago.

Bedroom

Bedroom

Bedroom

Music room

Music Room

Music room

I’m really happy with how it’s come out, I am especially in love with our bedroom at the moment, the stripes look so vibrant and also I have sorted out my area for my sewing stuff, and my mini-office (i.e. my desk and shelves) so feel organised and enthusiastic about everything.

Next – the gargantuan task of the living room / dining room. Chris wants to paint it mustard yellow, I’m not so sure.