21.01.2011 – interior design and inspiration

I was lucky today when I nipped past the DIY store, because they had their own brand cheap & cheerful silk white emulsion reduced to £2.44 for their 2.5 liter pot. I’d never use cheap paint for my walls, because this is one of these things where quality does make a big difference in ease and subsequent use. Also: white walls? THERE WILL BE NO WHITE WALLS IN MY HOUSE EVER! *breathes* Ahem, sorry, sore point. Having lived in Germany for the first 30 years of my life I have sworn to NEVER have a single white wall anywhere again.

Anyway, back to the inspiration ,interior design and the bit of handstitching I did tonight. Let’s keep the handstitching to the side for now, I will get back to that later.

When I bought my house in 2007 I was just about married, and for some reason I decided on decoration the rooms a la Lord of the Rings with different worlds in different rooms. Ah, yes, could be that the ex-husband was so much into LOTR. Bless, must have been the only book he ever read. No, wait, that was the Hobbit, he thought that LOTR was a bit more complicated. Awww diddums. Shush, bad me, slap on the wrist and all that, for being snarky. Meows and eye-scratching aside, I found myself two years later divorced and with absolutely no one to compromise on interior decoration on. So I went wild. One can only go so far with paints, fabrics, stencils, etc, eventually the furniture has to be changed.

Furniture is expensive, even IKEA (at least the ones that I want) and thus I am still lumbered with a twee Hobbity Leksvig concoction in my living room:

Oh. Sweet. Isn’t it twee? BLEURGH!

I did what I could straight away, such as adding this lamp instead of the cutesie heraldic one:

Then I decided I really had to do something ASAP about the corner of the room where the ex-husband’s computer used to me. trust me, taking a sledge hammer to the built-in shelf and corner desk was a delight. 😉

I absolutely love IKEA’s Besta Burs series in glossy red and would be a happy puppy if I could just get all new furniture in, but alas, the price for something that isn’t necessary and that I’d just like because I like it, is prohibitive.

But what, if anything, is the best thing about being creative? Exactly! Know where to rip off inspiration and how to use powertools. Teehee!

So I up-funked my own desk corner last year:

And this year I first got the new flatscreen monitor that ways hardly anything compared to the CRT monster, because I have plans for a corner desk design, built with coloured glass blocks and light behind them.

But what to do about the cutesie wutesie buffet and display cabinet? Firstly I added the same colourful fabric I have in my conservatory:

But that is not enough. It was a good first step last year, but more is beckoning to get rid of the olde worlde wood. Inspiration has been with me for several years, because I adore the IKEA Hack blog. One of the contributors blew me out of my socks when I first discovered his interior designs last year, so I searched for him a while back and lo and behold, here he is, my interior design and DIY hero:

I love this wall. Love the room. Love absolutely everything (I want that living room!). And when you look at his blog you can see the wonderful tricks and techniques he used to create all this beauty. Let me tell you, his window is the coolest window of all time. Honest.

This chap is a genius, the photos on his Flickr account (where the photo above is from) are amazing.

So, yes, I got the paint for the big wall painting’s canvas, got a sheet of cheap MDF and tomorrow I’m going with friends to IKEA for a wee nosey around. I like to get inspired while snaffling meatballs. 🙂

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