Archie's Room Makeover

This week I'm in Archie's bedroom, showing you through the most exciting redecoration project for him!

I wanted to share and chat through the process, how we tackled different areas and how we painted and decorated this room - I hope you enjoy the transformation!

The bed:

Archie's new bed was rescued out of the back of the chicken shed, where it's been stored for over 15 years! Sigh was absolutely desperate to get it in the skip and I said no way.

I took the bed to the Victorian Brass Bedstead Company, which is in the middle of nowhere in West Sussex to be restored for Archie's bedroom by mastercraftsman Dan, who is wonderfully skilled! Archie is so excited to finally have a slightly bigger bed in his room, it's been the same since he was 2 years old and he's growing at a rate of knots so it is about time!

When dropping the bed off, we were advised to come and pick it back up in four, five or six weeks at which point it will be looking beautiful and fully restored.

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Emptying & the room and filling the cracks!

Before doing any type of crack filling, sanding or painting it's important to empty the room of as much furniture and items as you can, then bring what you can't move into the centre of the room and cover it with a dust sheet. Di and I used Polyfilla for the large cracks, and rather than sanding afterwards, we used hot water, my favourite Fairy liquid and a sponge to wipe it down. It saved a tonne of time and minimised the dust!

Painting:

Painting started with us using a roller to put a fresh white onto the ceiling. We then cut in around the beams using a paintbrush with the new blue colour, making sure we were careful around the details. We left it all to dry overnight, before touching up any spots the next morning. Since our walls are quite old, the lines between the walls and the ceiling aren't going to be entirely straight.

Di doesn't believe in using masking tape, so I used a tiny, tiny amount of paint on my brush to very carefully and slowly line them up freehand! The reason we didn't use masking tape is that this is the oldest part of the house, and we've had a little trouble with the walls peeling and a few crumbles. If we used masking tape, we would run the risk of peeling away the wall at the same time when we come to remove it!

If you have a new build, of course, masking tape should be absolutely fine. But with older properties, you have to work with their quirks and be sympathetic to their needs!

Skirting & woodwork:

We did however use masking tape to protect the carpet from paint. We ran it along the bottom and used a knife to poke it down as close to the bottom of the carpet as we could, and then went along all of the skirting boards freehand, again very slowly and with great patience and concentration!

Sockets:

To get right behind all of the sockets in Archie's room, we unscrewed them and brought them ever so slightly away from the wall - be super careful if you choose to do so too!

Curtains:

The fabric that Archie chose is from Falcon Fabrics in Chichester, they had the most amazing selection and a bonus was that the one he loved was in the sale. It was eight pounds a meter, which is really, really excellent. Di is altering the curtains. We're not making them from scratch, instead, we're using the same interlining and lining and just changing the front fabric, which is quite a cost-effective way of doing it.

Choosing The Paint:

I took my little fabric swatch from Falcon Fabrics into Brewers, also in Chichester, to choose the paints. I knew I was going to go bold with walls, and I got three paint samples. They have painted wooden samples in Brewers so you can check out the colour of the paint in situ, not just by guessing by the colour on the tin.

Two of my samples were Farrow & Ball, and the other was the Sanderson paint we eventually went for. I got the closest blues I could to my fabric swatch and then brought them home to paint small samples onto the wall.

It's a good idea to paint your samples in a couple of places and to look at the patches that you've painted in different lights, at different times of the day. I painted my samples behind a picture hanging on the wall, so Archie had no idea, which was a little sneaky of me I know!

The Sanderson Menai Blue was the closest to the fabric sample and it works really well. It's an excellent quality paint, and we only needed to use one coat. We did need to touch up a few little areas, but overall it was brilliant.

I purchased a five-litre tin for £20, which has done the whole room and there's plenty left over - so it's pretty cost-effective!

The woodwork we touched up with Farrow & Ball Slipper Satin, which we already had from when we did the house 11 years ago.

Replacing the furniture:

Firstly, I whizzed the hoover around to pick up any dust and give it a good once over whilst there's little to no furniture inside. Then we began to start bringing up pieces of furniture, starting with the newly refurbished bed, to bring it all together and make it look a lovely, cosy, inviting space for him.

It may take a little while to work out the best place for your furniture to go back to, especially if you have a new piece going in, but have patience and you'll get there! Use the time to think about where it would all work best.

Putting the now beautiful bed back into Archie's room produced what was probably the highlight of the entire process for me, Sign eating his words and admitting that it looked awesome! Do make sure you watch the video to see the real admission!

Finishing touches:

I had a lovely new lampshade made by Joanna from Lolly & Boo, which accents the colour perfectly and is sitting proudly on his bedside table.

Archie chose to have artwork from his Godfather, his siblings, his Grandfather and Jenny Meldrum on his walls. The Jenny Meldrum piece includes his place of birth, his weight, his time of birth, his initials and the two labradors we had when he was born, so it's a very special piece.

The three pieces from Simon's Father, Barry Gray, were hand-drawn and painted by him, he was a music composer and also the most incredible artist.

We let Archie choose what he would like on the walls since I thought it would be lovely for him to have some involvement.

We finished by making his bed with beautiful linens from Cologne & Cotton and a bedspread from So Souk, topped off with a gorgeous cushion I bought from The Country Brocante. We wanted to have as much as we could ready for him when he got back the following day for the big reveal… do watch the video to see his reaction! Safe to say it took his breath away!

It's been incredible and invaluable having Di alongside me during this renovation, she's been teaching me so much and it's given me the confidence to go and tackle other rooms in the house. I know what I'm doing, I'm not an expert, but I can do a good enough job.

It has also been a bit emotional, to be honest. I think packing away the curtain fabric that I chose for him when he was tiny, whilst he was in a cot in this room, all those memories came flooding back. I kept remembering the words that Auntie Margaret, a really dear family friend said to me. She said, when he was born, "Let him fly. If you let them fly, they will want to come back." And that was really, really great advice.

I think because Mum didn't have a happy marriage, my brother and I were her everything, it did feel quite claustrophobic, Ed and I could feel a bit trapped at times. So those words have been important for me to keep remembering and reminding myself of. To give him the confidence to go off and do lots of exciting things, to seize new opportunities that are coming his way.

One thing that's been lovely the last couple of evenings is that I've been able to sit on his bed and chat with him. I don't read to him anymore, but his old bed was too small for me to get on as well. It's just been a really lovely time in the evening, coming in and saying goodnight to him, perching on the bed and having a bit of a catch-up.

I think it's really important to take time to come and sit with children and to chat about their day and whatever's going on and to just be connected, so this has been such a wonderful bonus of the renovation.

Wishing you a happy weekend, sending you lots and lots of love and I will see you again next week.

Love, Charlie x