Room Refurb Episode 2: Trashed

After last week’s very excited blog post about my plans for decorating my room this week’s update comes with far less positivity.

I think last week I was overwhelmed with excitement and eager to get going then and there and all my ideas about how things will look with all the pretty Halloween decorations I’m be making or buying. On Saturday Gem and Helen very kindly joined me for a planning summit to work out how we’re going to undertake the task. We got some big boxes bought ready to pack things into and I made a start that evening.

I never realised how horrible and unsettling packing everything would be, it’s going to be a monumental task, my room looks trashed and for once through no fault of my own! My en suite is completely filled with boxes already and I haven’t even started moving clothes or my prized CD collection yet.

I think the problem is that I’ve come to an impasse as we won’t be pulling any wallpaper off or painting until late October so I can’t even move anything or empty any wardrobes yet, hence the trashed looking room. Downstairs bathroom is also filled with boxes from my shiny, new Ikea furniture adding further to the chaos!

I think partly the problem, as Helen pointed out, is that I’m peeling away the last of my childhood and teenage years. It’s oddly hard to let go.

Next week Helen & I are off to Stratford for a few days which’ll be a nice change of scenery and hopefully a bit of brain space for me too.

Plus I’ve hear rumour of a Harry Potter-esque shopping alley, I’m sure a few room decorations might find their way back to Eastbourne …

Love Jen

XxxX

Something decorative this way comes!

So Autumn is upon us, let’s be honest it started the Sunday of Airbourne and we’ve barely had a nice day since – conveniently aside from the day I was helping Helen move flat when we could have done with cooler weather for lumping boxes up and down the world’s tallest flight of stairs! Her new flat is absolutely lovely and the lady she’s living with seems nice, her name is also Jen so she can’t be all bad! Whilst having lunch on the moving day the conversation turned to my state of a bedroom and whether I should think about decorating.

To give you guys an idea; I’ve lived in the same corner of the same room since I was probably about 8 weeks old and it hasn’t had any alterations since then aside from a few bits of furniture going in and my Wendy-House moving out when I was about 8 (such a shame, that would have made a perfect unicorn house now). The wallpaper is actually bathroom wallpaper and has ‘Splash’ written on it in various bright colours, one wall is yellow with a big wallpaper tear (my fault from putting up and taking down posters over the years) and the wardrobes and cupboard are covered in stickers that Chris and I decorated with as kids. I have photos all over the place to try and cover the worst of it, so I’ve finally cracked and set myself the project to make the room mine (since I’m nowhere near well enough to move out any time soon). Hopefully focusing on the task will  distract me from my yearly Autumn blues (along with a trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon for Helen and I in a couple of weeks).

The theme for my room will of course be Halloween! I’m finally giving my room the goth make-over I’ve wanted since I was 17. Whilst I will be refraining from painting the walls black (I’m going with grey as a compromise) but one wall is going to be a Nightmare Before Christmas-esque black and white stripes. I’ve been happily looking at loads of Pinterest ideas (along with some very, bordering on scary, excitement from Gem and Helen) for décor. I’ve smashed my coin pot and treated myself to some brand-new furniture from Ikea. It sounds awful and ungrateful to say it, and I really don’t mean it that way, but I cannot wait to have a shiny new wardrobe, chest of drawers and shelves rather than my second & third hand bits.

My aim is to have a room that is entirely me, that I can build on and switch decorations in and out of, that looks far less cluttered (despite hundreds of clear outs!) and more grown-up.

I’ll be sure to post plenty of progress photos!

Love Jen

XxxX

Ps when I say ‘grown up’ that does include the coffin-shaped shelf!