Bedroom Transformation

Well as promised, now that our bedroom make over is just about finished, I have posted some "Before" and "After" photos to show the transformation.
About 20 years ago, the exact year has vanished in the mists of time, we decorated this room from scratch with a lovely Zoffany wallpaper and fabrics and bought some traditional mahogany furniture. Approximately 10 years later we decorated again with new carpet curtains and wallpaper. This time we kept the same furniture and some of the Zoffany fabric that I still loved.
At this point in time I visited India for the first time, whereas Paul was already a regular visitor with his job going out to inspect suppliers of mangoes, poppadoms and spices. We had collected quite a few artifacts of interest like cushions, statues and woodblocks and so we decided to have a bit of an Indian theme going on, using quite a bit of gold paint and rich colours.

Before 1 - Golds and terracottas, framed prints
of  maharajahs and silk cushions

After 1 - Greys, cerise pink and bold yellow,
velvet throw and my embellished cushions
and wallpaper I designed for my FMP



Before 2 - Mahogany wardrobes,Zoffany
fabric on doors and silk curtains 

  



After 2 - Same wardrobes painted to match new
furniture, new curtains at window and doors



Before 3 - Canopy above bed and rocking
chair  with more cushions

After 3 - Canopy gone and wallpaper now
the feature, still needs a chair but the one I
want is out of stock

We still aren't quite finished as some of the plain walls need some artwork, our Georgian chair for the dressing table has gone off to be french polished and upholstered and I'm still hoping to get a small chair in grey felted wool but apart from that it's done! I have had some very positive feedback but I still wonder if people are just being polite knowing that I designed the wallpaper. Honest comments welcome.

The lovely new curtains I made with Villa Nova fabric from Jackie

Bedroom Make Over

Since finishing my degree in Textile and Surface Design I have been dying to see some of my work in a real life situation. As our bedroom was ready for decorating it seemed like the perfect  opportunity to showcase some of my work. I started with a collection of cushions that I had submitted as part of my Final Major Project, which was based on the theme of Evolution. After visiting lots of museums I had a good selection of drawings of fossils that became the basis for several fabric and wallpaper ranges and so I used some of the imagery again to design some boxed cushions, which I embellished with sparkle using fabric paints and the embroidery threads I had chosen as part of my Madeira sponsorship.

The difficult bit was choosing a wallpaper to coordinate as there were so many but I short listed two. The first was based on some amazing fossils called Phacops Strenbergii that I had produced in sombre reds and greys but I decided to change the colours to match some of those in the cushions.

Original colourway

 

New colourway














I was all ready to send this off for printing when I had a change of heart. I wanted some plain grey curtains but struggled to find any fabric that toned with the background colour. My friend Jackie has her own curtain making business and has supplied some amazing fabrics in the past so I searched her sample books and came up with a Villa Nova fabric that I thought would look good.

Samples of fabric, carpet and paint

This made me look again at my wallpapers and I decided to change to another wallpaper that I had had a length printed of for my degree show and New Designers in London. Once again I changed the colours to blend with the cushions and this time I had it printed.
 

Original colourway

 

New colourway

It's all very exciting and Darren the decorator is putting it up as I type.

Darren hanging the first few strips of paper.

 

The first roll I've had printed

 I will post a blog showing the before and after when its all finished.

Martha's New Cardi

Martha and her new cardi

I love knitting but especially when the end result looks as cute as this. This time I simply followed the pattern and used up some Rowan wool that I had had for a while (as it was a free gift for being a member of their club).
This gave Lynsey the opportunity to look for an outfit to team up with it (not that she needs any excuse to shop for Martha new clothes!).

Jacket style cardigan

Button detail

She is also big into making customised hair slides to match each of her outfits and so for this she knocked up yet another one.

Matching slide