Framing Vintage Wallpaper

Forget vintage, antique most probably....

So we are moving the fake beam covers from the real beams (crazy I know, but another quirk of the previous owners taste), and generally re-vamping the littlest bedroom, and suddenly, from some dark corner of the room, hidden behind a panel that had been in situ for perhaps one hundred years, we spy a little fragment of colour:

Above: The wallpaper in situ, as we found it behind an old panel.

The style, and the age of the wallpaper immediatey gets me in an excited tiz and so the boy carefully extracts the rest of the strip as carefully as possible.

With a hessian back I'm guessing this is pretty old, and I LOVE IT!

Funny how tastes turn full circle!

So I brought a large white frame to display the wallpaper, and it is currently the centre piece over the fireplace in the snug. 

Above: The wallpaper fragment has pride of place on the mantel in the snug.

I love the fact that it is from the house - it feels like a present, and we get to preserve a little moment of the property's history. :)

My little secrets:
Frame fragments of wallpaper from your house - the weirder the better! Create a collage and they will great, and represent your house's past style (no matter how unlikely you would be to choose them yourself!).
Frame: Approx £10 from The Range
Ickle Teddy bear - Steiff (a much treasured gift).

Bedroom Blitz - (before and during) tbc...

So the Easter holidays were a-maz-ing, because we spent all four days together, covered in dust and paint and more dust, and at the end of it we have a pretty gorgeous bedroom (if I do say so myself!).

Firstly you need to see the before shot, and remember that the floor was all scuffed up and stained, and the yucky wallpaper was a flowery beige crime, and the walls an icky magnolia with loads of pit holes. Other that that it was in pretty good nick, and definitely the best room in the house when we moved in.

Above: icky wallpaper and scuffed up floor :(

Day 1: Firstly, we filled, sanded and prepared the 3 painted walls (there were a lot of cracks to fill), and painted over the manky wallpaper with F&B Downpipe No 26, then we painted over the 3 remaining, tear inducing, magnolia walls with a crisp brilliant white - what a breath of fresh air!

Day 2: We sanded the oak floors - they only needed a fine 120 grade sanding (as they weren't that bad really), we coated them with Danish oil, and left them to dry.

Above: During - bedroom floor - part way through - sanded but not oiled but  already looking great!

Above: After - the lovely oak flooring oiled with natural Danish oil :)

(It is worth pointing out that at this stage, all our bedroom belongings were outside in the courtyard exposed to the elements - fine when the sun was shining, not so great when the heavens decided to open - cue me running around with plastic decorators sheeting and masking tape desperately trying to protect the sofa, bed and wardrobes from the worst of it - not hilarious)

Day 3: (Easter Sunday): Spend the day painting the window frames (F&B Lamp Room Grey), and then moved on to the wooden furniture - (see my updating pine furniture post here).

You need to know at this stage that the bedroom furniture was a mixmatch of all colours of pine, from the untreated bare kind to the orangey shiny kind - not a great look for a restful, coordinated and fabulous bedroom see below:

Above: Before -yucky shiny orangey pine drawers - blurgh.

Now I know you probably want to see the 'after', the 'before' and 'during' is a bit of an anti-climax, but I am not quite ready yet, just a few more finishing touches and then I'll post them - promise! :)

Moving to the country, gonna eat me a lot of peaches...

Some time in September 2011 we met an estate agent some where in the middle of nowhere, and viewed our new house - a beautiful old farmhouse ripe for renovation and set in a courtyard of gorgeous falling-down barns, surrounded by 9 acres of paddocks, woodland, overgrown gardens and orchards - our dream!

Four months later and we were in, stupidly happy and just as excited! In the first 6 weeks we have already achieved a hell of a lot and the alterations and improvements are coming thick and fast, and that is the reason for this blog really, to track all of what we are doing and have done to the farmhouse and land, and to share our experience in words and images with anyone who happens to be interested!