I've won a prize! After taking part in a Twitter competition, my copy of the "The Great Interior Design Challenge" arrived last week. A few weeks ago I saw a tweet posted by @HabitatUK offering a copy of the #GIDC book if you could correctly identify the sofa featured on the front cover. I had a look through the
Habitat website (no great chore, I could look at it for quite some hours) and found the right sofa & posted my answer. I didn't think anymore about it & was extremely pleased to get an email saying that I'd won.
I really enjoyed the series and it has inspired me to be more adventurous and stamp a more individual feel on our home. It was also a great lesson in transforming a room on a very tight budget. Most people usually think "expensive" when they think of interior design, but the #GIDC series proved that with a bit of imagination & elbow grease, you can have contemporary and interesting design for minimal expenditure.
The book couldn't have arrived at a better time for us. We've lived in our house for just over a year & we've been redecorating virtually every room since we moved in. We've finally made a start on the room I was dreading the most...the kitchen. We've lived with the previous owners grubby, wonky & very dark tiles for the past fifteen months. It was time for them to go. The tiler who removed the old tiles said it was the worst tiling job he'd ever seen...so we were glad to see the back of them. The previous owner had tiled all the way to the ceiling and used a combination of lopsided white tiles above jet black tiles at the bottom. We don't have a big kitchen and the black tiles sucked all the light our of the room.
We've had fun choosing some beautiful new tiles. Whilst we loved the vivid yellow of the Mexican rustic wall tiles, we decided to go with a glossy sea green colour. I can't wait to see them on the wall...although bare walls are an improvement on the tiles that were there before.
I've already read the chapter on sanding wood floors in the #GIDC book and I'm hoping to make a start on the dining room and conservatory floors once the weather warms up & we can have some windows open. It looks like incredibly dusty work. We're toying with the idea of painting the floorboards white, but I think I prefer the warm tones of natural wood with a clear lacquer or varnish.
The #GIDC series also introduced me to chalk paint. Lots of the contestants used drab, second hand furniture and transformed it with a coat of paint. I am now a chalk paint convert & have painted an antique wardrobe. It now houses my vintage fabric collection out in the hallway. I've also bought a dresser to house my vintage china collection. Currently it is in the dining area, it remains unpainted whilst we complete the kitchen. But as soon as I get time, I will get the chalk paint out. At £46, it was a absolute bargain on Ebay. It just needs some TLC and it will look amazing.
I've also moved my computer down to the dining area next to the kitchen. This was partly out of necessity because my broadband signal wouldn't reach upstairs to my office. But, I'm happy with the way it looks and I'm going to hang a "Tiger Who Came to Tea" print on the wall above my desk. It is one of my daughter's favourite books and as I have aspirations to be a children's author, I hope it will inspire me every time I look up from the computer screen.
The Great Interior Design Challenge
Habitat
The Great Interior Design Challenge book
