PARENTHOOD: 4 Ways to Futureproof your Child's Bedroom

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As a parent there are a lot of changes, milestones and exciting moments that change your family life. When both Isabella and Poppy were approaching six months and quickly outgrowing their Moses basket I knew we had to make 'the big move' into their own bedroom. It was an anxious time, but luckily it resulted in more sleep for everyone and we really enjoyed creating a peaceful, adaptable space for them to call their own. Planning your child's bedroom is such a fun process, as you consider colour palettes, furniture, storage and where all of their toys are going to go?! But something that is worth considering during this process is how to futureproof their bedroom, so that you're not having to spend yet more money in only a few years to once again adapt it to their older age.

DIY PROJECT: Painted Seagrass Basket

On the run up to Poppy being born we were busy renovating and decorating our spare room for Isabella to move into. It wasn't a simple paint job (nothing ever is with old houses it seems!), a new ceiling had to be put in, whole room wallpapered, window repaired, holes filled, new carpet put in and the standard wall/wood work painted too. Of course, this could have been done at a leisurely rate but the impending birth of our Poppy meant there was no such luxury. As I was pretty useless when it came to getting involved (large baby bumps make almost everything DIY related an impossible task), so I turned my attention to much smaller crafty DIY projects I actually could do.

HOME INTERIOR: Toddler Girls Bedroom Reveal

Here it finally is...Isabella's toddler bedroom reveal! This post has taken far longer than it probably should to put together; I'll blame the birth of Poppy (though in reality it is more likely to be because I keep finding more things to add and wanting to retake the photos. Are bedrooms ever finished?). We transformed our spare room, which means that every bedroom in our house is finally decorated now. Only 2.5 years after moving in! The room is a really good size, with a large window and old fireplace. Isabella is one lucky little lady.

TODDLER: Big Girl Bedroom Wishlist

Isabella turned two in April and it seemed like the perfect time to move her into her 'big girl room' (aka. the spare room). Though we don't need the nursery for a while, as bump will sleep in our bedroom for a good few months to begin with. It made sense to do it before baby arrives. I would hate for Isabella to feel pushed out because of her little sister's arrival, so we were planning on doing it well in advance.

HOUSE: The Process of Decorating our Bedroom

As I've previously mentioned I decided to put myself in charge of decorating our bedroom, as I was pretty much useless in the other rooms. It's been so much fun learning basic decorating skills, tips and tricks, mainly from my Dad but YouTube videos and the internet in general have been very helpful too.

When we first looked at the room that would become our bedroom we looked at the standard of the wallpaper, woodwork, fireplace and floorboards (as we're having exposed floorboards). Looking at the whole room is so important because it helps you identify the work that will need to be done. Luckily, in our bedroom the wallpaper was good enough to just paint over. There were a couple of joins where the wallpaper had started to peel away, so I used an adhesive to basically glue the wallpaper back down. It was easy to do and saved having to peel all the wallpaper off and then putting lining paper back up. There was a very dark purple colour on the chimney breast and one wall, which needed to be painted over with a Pure Brilliant White paint first. Otherwise when we went to paint our chosen colour on top the purple would have still shown through. 

As for the colour scheme in our bedroom, we have decided to go for grey. The chimney breast is a dark grey and the walls a very light grey. Don't underestimate the tough job of finding and liking paint - we have bought so many tester pots its ridiculous! We settled on B&Q Colours Silk Emulsion Paint in Grey Slate 2.5l £14 for the chimney breast and Wickes Vinyl Silk Emulsion Paint in Powder Grey 2.5l (£15.99) for the rest of the walls. For the skirting borders, door surrounds and fireplace mantelpiece we opted for Pure Brilliant White Gloss Paint for Wood and Metal - a lot of brands do this product.

The first job was to sand down all of the woodwork in the room: door frames, skirting boards, window (as we decided to paint it white), fireplace and the loft entrance. It was a tough job - I have the weakest arms but skill wise it was very easy. This breaks the seal of the paint already on these areas and means that there's a rough surface for the new paint to stick to. Or so I'm told. I then brushed down these areas to make sure there wasn't any residue left and painted the wood undercoat paint on. It's an almost white colour and prepares the wood ready for the gloss paint to be applied. I'd highly recommend using a small brush for this, as I battled on with a much too big one for so long and then 'treated myself' to a small decorating brush from Wickes (this one to be precise). It made the job so much easier!

Next I started painting the walls (I had already painted the chimney breast and dark purple wall with a pure brilliant white matt emulsion paint) with the Powder Grey paint. Using a paint brush I painted around the light switch, skirting boards, edge of the walls and the ceiling with the paint first. Then, using a roller I rolled on the paint to the rest of the wall. I used the Professional Roller & Tray Set 230mm from Wickes (£3.99), as I was advised to use a medium pile length roller (the hairs on the roller are medium length, as you can get long and short too but they're for different jobs). Rolling on the paint means you get a beautiful finish and its so much quicker too! After painting one coat and letting it completely dry, I painted a second layer. Very easy to do but quite time consuming. I did the same thing with the dark grey paint on the chimney breast too.

After that, I painted the woodwork with the white gloss paint and made sure I was really careful with where I was painting as I had now painted the walls. Other than painting the skirting boards making my acid reflux in pregnancy even worse, I really enjoyed painting our bedroom. I am a true amateur and it's so satisfying seeing your hard work take shape.

Tom has now painted the ceiling, with a matt pure brilliant white paint, and we are currently preparing the floorboards to be painted grey too. I went around with a scraper, scraping up any dried drips of paint/old paint and started the sand the floorboards down. We will then make sure that there is no residue left on the floorboards before painting the undercoat primer for wood on. The paint we have chosen for the floorboards is the Ronseal Diamond Hard Floor Paint in Slate. It says its very hard wearing, so hopefully it will stand the test of time!

That's where I'm up to with the bedroom at the moment. I'm really looking forward to putting our new furniture and home accessories in to the bedroom now - starting to make it look more like a bedroom than a decorating site.

Do you enjoy decorating rooms in your house? 

Feel free to leave me a comment :)

Helen x