Sunny front room

I thought I'd share with you a picture of my front room in the pretty morning sunshine.

We have been renovating our little Victorian terraced house slowly over the past few years and currently our kitchen and bathroom are looking a little 'worse for wear'. So being in this room in the sunshine makes me feel I can pretend we are living in a nice clean house and feel proud of what we have achieved so far. We have gone for the country cottage / shabby chic / period look to try and tie in with the age of the property but still have a modern and homely feel. This room started off with white walls, a horrid blue carpet and somebody had painted the beautiful bird tiles on the fireplace a garish blue - urgh!

Sorry about the naff photo quality - but you get the idea! It took a lot of scraping to remove that blue paint and recover the birdies. After this we painted the walls. We painted the wall behind the dresser and the chimney breast in Farrow & Balls 'Cooking Apple Green'. F&B describe this as "An old fashioned non-strongly coloured green.." I agree as it's a beautiful putty green that's very calming and pleasant to live with. We teamed it with F&B's 'Lichen' in the alcoves (behind the shelves) & the wall opposite the chimney breast (not seen) this is described as "Quieter and subtler than No.13 Olive for well lit rooms". This is again beautiful but darker than the cooking apple green so provides a subtle contrast and plays with the light in the room (we get the light in the mid morning, late afternoon & evenings). We used the estate emulsion as this gives a very matte finish. If you are considering using Farrow & Ball paints I would strongly recommend buying a tester pot first, I know they're expensive (I have found them £3.99 from Homebase or they can be bought directly from F & B or other suppliers) but the colour changes so drastically depending on the light and time of day as an example I have loved a colour in one room and hated it in another. I'm not linked to F & B in any way I just love the quality and coverage of the paints plus they do not have that horrid 'chemical' smell that many other paints have and thus do not give me any headaches.

After this we sanded and varnished the original floorboards (120 years old!)  which added a beautiful warmth to the room. I do have to warn you that this is very very messy but worth it in the end!

The TV stand was an up-cycled piece that the OH's grandad had made in the 1970's. We gave it a few coats of F & B's Tallow eggshell and it was as good as new. Tallow is described by F & B as "Warm. A light off-white with a yellow tint" This is indeed a very mellow creamy colour that has not been picked up by the camera very well.

The meter cabinet had a vile mahogany effect varnish on it which was promptly covered by F & B's Tallow eggshell.

The pine dresser started off as a vile orange junk shop find which I sanded back, painted in F & B's Tallow (again!) and applied Danish oil to the knobs and top of the dresser. I now love it and feel proud of what I have achieved (this was my first attempt at up-cycling).

We still have plenty of things to do in here such as install a wood burner, paint the shelving (though I'm not sure whether to keep the shelves in here yet) and construct a better meter cabinet (this is just left to the guitar). But for some reason it feels like a lovely calm room. Sorry for the very long ramble it's just I'm spending a lot of time propped up in this room following spraining my back and even though I'm in pain this room as well as the people (and cat!) I love around me have all helped me to smile.

Take care x