B&Q unloved rooms revamp - review thread for MNers getting stuck in! NOW CLOSED

[TheOtherHelenMumsnet]

This thread is for the 20 MNers who have been chosen by B&Q to revamp an unloved room in their home.

Those selected have been sent a B&Q giftcard to buy the things they need to give their unloved room a makeover. They've undertaken to complete the makeover by 3rd June, and will be keeping us up-to-date on how their revamps are going on this thread as well as posting photos.

Please do follow their stories and add your own comments if you want to show some support!

Below are the questions we'd like testers to answer but please feel free to add your own comments too. Please give us a bit of info about the room you're revamping and what you plan to do with it in your response.

• Why is your unloved room unloved? What do you want to change about it? What has stopped you until now?
• Where did you get your inspiration for doing up the room from? What sort of style are you going for etc?
• Have you had much help along the way with the revamp? If so, who from? And what sort of help - practical or ideas-based?!
• How did you find your shopping experience at B&Q? Were the staff helpful? Did you find anything in store you maybe didn't expect to beforehand?
• Did you use any of the help and advice that B&Q offer? This includes their videos on YouTube, leaflets and classes in store etc. If so, how useful was that help and advice?
• If B&Q could do anything more to help you next time you visit, what would it be?
• Have you had any feedback on what you've done with the room from family/friends? Has the transformation had a big impact on you and/or your family?

If you're not an official tester but would like to be in with a chance of winning a £200 B&Q giftcard, please post on this thread to tell us about your own room revamp successes (or failures!) - we'd love to hear from all MNers who have a room makeover story to share!

Thanks very much
MNHQ

Ooh, just found this thread and very jealous of you all - the transformations look fab.

If there's still vouchers to be won I'd like to nominate our new house's bathroom. We did the bathroom in our current house 3 years ago and put in a walk-in shower and wooden furniture with teal wall tiles and grey floor tiles. It's lovely and the one thing I regret about our new house - it's smaller than our current one and showing its age. All grotty white tiles and grey paint. We'll also need to add a lot more storage.

I'm getting lots of inspiration for our general redecorating from all your posts though.

Ok my conscience is getting the better of me, please don't try the tuna or the ketchup.

Thank you sooooooo much for picking us. Just been having a few issues with be able to get room fit for decoration!!!!!!! See attached photos - it is my 18 year old son's room. After excitedly telling him that we have won a makeover worth £300 advised he needed to tidy the room in order to decorate -this is AFTER tidying!!! My washing bin then consisted of......... 16 pairs of boxer shorts, 2pairs of shorts, 5 pairs of work/school trousers, 2 work shirts, 4 school shirts, 14 pairs of socks, plus 6 odd socks 2 t-shirts, 3 pairs of jeans, I could go on.....

I am working on this but doesn't seem promising!!!!!

I have booked my B & Q decorating course for June but it may be a different room (as my son cannot prove it can look after it)!!!! Watch this space as my B & Q voucher is burning a hole.......

Hang on a minute, I thought we had a deadline of 3rd June!!!???

We do nevergoogle - which is a very good thing for us as otherwise it would probably take us months! I can't wait to get a nice bedroom, hopefully we'll be in on Sunday

Loving the colour!

using this to sit and relax! love the red cushion

Yes it is the 3rd June which is why my decorating course will be after the event!! Earliest my local store could book my in for (at least i'll be practised for next time)! Yes son's room still in a mess therefore I am frantically planning my B & Q visit for today with the view of converting my garage into living/wardrobe space - think I'm gonna put wood style flooring down (my partner is pencilled in for this after my painting efforts). Better get to it!

danmoore, my decorating course is on Monday, so I have been muddling through with a mixture of advice online from B&Q and past experience!

Picture of fireplace: before

Picture of fireplace during:

Ta dah!!

Three days of scraping and cursing (surely not!) to get to that point. I've also painted the quarry tiles which make up the hearth.

More painting of walls today - second coat for them. Plus another coat for the tiles and will paint the windowsill, which is also quarry tiles. Still to put up the new curtain pole, which will have to be done when the paint is dry, varnish the floor and hang the pictures. I couldn't find any wall art I liked, so I have bought three large-ish square picture frames and put different wallpaper samples in them, picking up the colour scheme for the room. I hope it works! I reckon I can change the paper each season and it will be like having new wall art :)

You're fireplace looks lovely.

'your' even

Great effort on the fireplace!

We also had a quandary about wall art. Couldn't decide so have ordered large prints of some photos we took on our travels- an iceberg, a temple and some mountains. Also ordered frames and mounts. I hope they come in time or the walls will look rather bare in the after pictures!

Cannot wait for it to be finished now. We screwed the floorboards down last night and just waiting for the carpet to be fitted now! Eek, exciting!

I swear by the wallpaper stripper we bought from B&Q a few months ago, if we hadn't bought it I think we would still be stripping wallpaper by hand! It was a lot quicker and less hard work!!

We ended up doing the nursery, bought some laminate flooring which hubby fitted. Stripped the horrible thick, embossed wallpaper from the walls and painted 2 walls dark grey and 2 walls pale grey. We have a dark wood sleigh cotbed, dark wood winnie the pooh toy chest, dark wood drawers and wardrobe. We then furnished the room with Toys R Us Starry Nights theme which is winnie the pooh - white with silver grey thread. It all looks really nice and classy :)

Everyone is doing a great job! Has no one else now been tempted to do other rooms? and end up spending loads like us? Should get a date our new carpets go down soon. Thankfully as four rooms are now splattered in paint.

We're not doing a great job.....I've been back at work and DW has been slaving away sugar soaping down all the disastrously crackle painted walls. She is about to bite the bullet and try a little of the eco-paint on a sugar-soaped clean wall now to see if it takes now that all wallpaper paste has been removed but if it doesn't she's a bit reluctant to proceed for fear of making things worse.....

I will add some photos later on but apart from the lining papered walls, the kingfisher blue feature wall and the vellum painted ceiling we're not near to 'closing the deal' yet.... .

Londonseye - yes we've been tempted too. More than that, we have started the ball rolling with the other bedroom!

However our 'B&Q room' was the only room we could do without a bit more serious work than DIY. The next room is getting the chimney breast knocked out! New floor, ceiling and plaster throughout. We've a builder coming to quote on Monday, just as we (hopefully!) meet the B&Q deadline

Chaos for a while longer for us!

Yes, we've got some leftover lining paper which will do DD's very small bedroom and she's well over-due a room revamp too - virtually as soon as I'd done it last time the cat got stuck in there and scratched off half of the Laura Ashley wallpaper - - in her attempt to get out...

We are ready to start the actual painting tomorrow ! My mum was not kidding when she said 90% of decorating is the prep work. I am very gratefully to have been chosen for this review, as we could of never afforded to do all this DIY atm. The children are so excited with their new paint choices and also very bored of playing in the garden while we decorate but the end is within sight.

It looks a total mess atm but I have reassured by my mother, that once the painting is done and everything up on walls, it will look good. I hope she is right and hopefully with no wallpaper to rip and the use of tough washable paint, it should stay look nice for a long while.

Next job is two coats of quick drying gloss at 6 hour interval tomorrow, paint wall colours on Saturday and/or Sunday. Monday panic and mental breakdown is reserved for finishing touches like blinds, lights fixtures, shelves, pictures and new duvet covers etc and breath :)

I went to B&Q yesterday and spent nearly all the money I had left. They had a great offer on paint...3 for 2 so I got the pink and purple for the kids room plus a free blue paint for a future project all in tough washable finish :)

I went for a plain but blackout roller blind and a flat 'flush to the ceiling' light fixture, as the kids room now has a bunk bed in it and I was worried they might touch the light fixture.

We wanted to buy the Bloom children plastic furniture for their room but this is going out of stock and not being restocked, so our local branch only had pink chairs, we got three of those but no tables or blue/green chairs.

The lovely bloke at B&Q helped us look on their system and found out who had the pink tables and one was 10 minutes away from my husbands work, so today DH is off to pick up a pink table and a couple of green chairs, as my son wanted a green chair.

I don't know about everyone else but the Bamber Bridge staff at our biggest local B&Q have been so lovely and helpful. Even asking if we need help as we wandered the store, looking for stuff. Answering my idiot questions and making sure we have the right stuff, like paint coverage etc.

They certainly made a great impression on me and I will be going back to B&Q for the good customer service, rather than the local Homebase who are far from helpful.

I have taken pictures and will post them shortly, just have to finish sanding skirting boards and undercoating the new skirting board.

our 2nd trip to b&q was much more successful. the 1st trip we only got paint and stuff we needed for painting, and the lampshade. we were disappointed with the curtains, as there wasnt much choice of lined curtains. any of the green ones, or patterned green ones werent lined. we some light grey ones, which were lined. the paint we got was a lime green, and we decided to do a feature wall thats green and leave the rest of the walls magnolia. we had got some magnolia paint too as those walls need repainting too. i looked online for colour ideas with lime green and magnolia, and saw some nice rooms which were green and magnolia with grey accessories. so we got the grey curtains for the bedroom we saw which are lined, and we got some green and grey cushions for the bed. they dont do duvet covers anymore, so got a green throw for the bed as well, and a green circle mirror for the wall. we walked it down this time, as its not too far from ours, so we couldnt carry everything, so we still need to go back, want to get some wall art or some other accessories for the room. we went to b&q this time roud in the early evening, and it was so much quieter, so was easier looking around and less time in the queue. will post pics of the items we got

I think we've got at least one more trip to make.....to get pictures etc...... DW was out sourcing new bedlinen today but without success.

The old bunkbeds have been dismantled and gone off to the tip courtesy of our bulky items delivery by the Council. The room looks a lot more spacious without the heavy, dark wooded bunk beds and hope that the high riser bed is going to continue this - we will be getting rid of DS's desk when the bed is made up as it's got a desk 'beneath'.

grey lined curtains and green throw for the bed and green circle mirror for the wall, to go with the lime green paint

cushions for the bed. green ones and grey ones with green piping to match paint (lime green) and curtains (grey)