A spot of redecorating

Ever since I bought a laptop, our study has become redundant. A guilty little secret, it was the dumping ground where we popped everything we had no cause to use often or, frankly, wasn’t pretty enough to have on display, and simply shut the door.

No more I decided recently (plus, we had James’ mother coming to stay from the UK so it needed to be sorted out, fairly pronto).

Here’s its new layout – the bed is a single Victorian enamelled number purchased from the Lewisham Auction House. While I was heavily pregnant, James and I ducked in there for a look. I pointed at the bedhead in a darkened corner, which was chipped, dirty and missing slats, and proclaimed it was the bed I’d always imagined for our future child. James said “me too,” and we had a soppy moment or two before buying it at the $90 reserve price. And yea, it will verily be Olive’s when she grows out of her cot.

We cleaned and fixed the worst of the chips, bought a length of pine for $30 from the hardware, which we had made into slats, and a super-comfy mattress. With the auctioneer’s commission it set us back just over $300 all up, plus an afternoon’s industrious labour.

The side table is a trusty Benjamin stool from IKEA, and the girly floral duvet set is a Queen size from Habitat – a remnant from my bachelorette days which I couldn’t quite bring myself to dispose of.

The poster I ordered a couple of years ago from the UK, although you can find them all over the place now. You might recognise the frame from the collage page of my book… it was a pinboard for a while but I re-purposed it for the poster, as its greenish patina just seemed to work really well with the red and white.

Next weekend, we’re installing a cavernous built-in wardrobe to house all those ugly odds and ends. Hurrah.