Do your (decorating) will with our spare bedroom!

[GrendelsMum]

For all those who like fantasy decorating, this is your chance. I suddenly looked at our spare bedroom yesterday and realised that it is not sweet and charmingly cottagey, but in fact dark, gloomy and uninviting. The women of Mumsnet can choose how to decorate it for me.

It is quite large (about 5 x 5 metres square), in an attic, so with sloping and bowed ceilings on two sides and rippling lime plaster walls. The floor is currently very badly carpeted (no nice boards underneath) and is very bowed. There is one small North-facing window opposite the door, and one pendant light fitting, right by the small window. At the moment, all the walls and ceiling are white and the carpet is dark red.

It has a large bed in it, and that's it. Also it has some piles of books and cds and videos and DVDs in that way that spare bedrooms have.

I don't think you could put wallpaper on any of the walls as they're lime plaster.

We do have a couple of seascapes in antique gold frames, so blue / gold might be a possible starting point.

Right, over to you! I challenge you to do your utmost.

Hello!
Your best bet is to work out how you want to dress the window and take it from there.
You could go for a Roman blind or floor length curtains. I think it is much easier to choose wall colours/flooring etc to work with fabric, rather than the other way round, it sounds like you need to replace the carpet.

What sort of bed is it, divan or mattress and frame? Again, if you have an upholstered headboard, then choose the fabric before you decorate.

Can you organise some storage for your spare books etc and a chest of drawers for guests to use?

Oh, that's a good idea. It has floor length curtains at the moment, just because that's what I happened to have spare. I wonder if I should go for some massively over the top curtains, floor length and looped back to the sloping ceiling on either side, to soften it a bit.

The bed is mattress and wooden frame, so very innocuous.

I shall have a look on Ebay for antique drawers and so on.

If the curtains are decent then perhaps spend the money on carpet and an unusual chest of drawers?

I think simple but comfortable is the main thing for guest rooms, at least that is how I feel when I say in other peoples homes.

Storage for clothes, comfortable bed and somewhere to put a glass of water/book/gardening magazine :)

No, the curtains aren't really decent either. The whole room's actually on the grim side, except for the good quality bed.

I think I'd be more inclined to put up a roman blind than big curtains and then add good carpet and bed linen, I think big curtains could accedntuate the sloped ceiling.

You could put a large comfy chair/chaise (plunder ebay) plus roberts radio in there to make it feel more welcoming.

Right, so

• pick fabric
• pick carpet
• pick wall colours
• pick ceiling colours

From Ebay / local antique shops

• comfy chair / chaise
• bookshelf
• chest of drawers
• Roberts Revival radio
• bedside tables

Gosh, it all makes it sound quite nice.

What do you think about lighting? At the moment, it's all very dim and badly lit, and I wonder if we need to put in more lights?

You need a lovely bedside lamp which makes the room look really cosy when you show the guests in. I never buy lampshades without seeing what colour they look with light coming through them (cue odd poses in JL lighting dept...). Some of them have very opaque linings, which I'm not keen on. Choose a warm colour which really glows. I had a lovely pink silk one once.

Also, maybe a small standard lamp (i.e., not too tall)? It would nicely illuminate sloping ceilings and you can try it in different spots.

I also love a couple patchwork cushions on the chair in rooms like yours. Are you crafty? It's a good winter evening project.

I agree with Heartsease, find a lovely bedside lamp with warm shade and put up a nice ceiling fitting.
It's a big room so you would need a few sources of light, pendent, table lamps etc.
A standard plugged in near the chair would make that a nice corner to read in.

And yes chunky cushions and wool throws are great ways to make it cosy.

This all sounds great - I went and had a look and found some spare fabric that we've got left over from downstairs, that might make a lovely blind.

I've also started looking on Ebay for my 'to buy' list.

What colour do you think the walls ought to be? I wondered about painting the end walls a straw colour, and leaving the ceilings off-white

Straw and off white sound good, would they work with the fabric you have?
How sunny is the room?

Not at all sunny - north-facing and dark, so I thought that straw coloured walls might cheer it up a bit, and give it a warmer feel. I think they'd work with the fabric quite nicely.

Oh yes you did say.
Yes straw would be good in that case, esp if it works with the fabric.
Some nicely textured blankets etc would be good I think, they tend to make a place feel cosier.
Will you put new carpet in? Or cover with a large rug?

F&B Pale Powder
Would look fab with antique gold frames/seascapes and wooden bed but flooring would have to be pale. I would do all walls/ceilings/eggshell in the same colour if you have sloping ceilings - that is my basic design principle for all our upstairs rooms that are like this.
I heart this colour so much it is in my kitchen and also a feature wall in my front room. My kitchen is E facing and huge so gets darker later in the day but somehow this colour keeps it bright and warm.
But if you're like me you will paint many samples on your wall before deciding!
FWIW the colour I have on the other walls in my front room is Dulux Rice Paper (now discontinued but can be mixed) which is a warm creamy straw, if that's what you end up going for, and also looks good with my gold frames.
Sorry for long post - hope it helps. I'm sure it will all look great in the end.

Good point about the sloping ceilings, it would probably look neater if they were the same colour as the wall, through straw might be a bit dark in this case.
What is Pale Powder like mamija? I dont recognise the name.

Here's Pale Powder - it seems to be a lovely shade of green:

www.farrow-ball.com/pale-powder///fcp-product/100204

DH would really like that (we used to have something very similar in our East-facing bedroom in our old house), but Farrow & Ball recommend it specifically for East-facing rooms, and not for North-facing rooms.

This is the fabric we've got available:

www.historicstyle.com/williammorris/wallpapers/linens/lin2720-02-det.html

I thought that this might be a good colour to go for:

www.farrow-ball.com/hay/colours//fcp-product/100037

And maybe this sort of flooring:

www.alternativeflooring.com/flooring/sub_detail_last.asp?product=11&catrgory=1&subcategory=0&range=

I cant open your links, can you try putting them in brackets to see if that works?

From memory Hay is a bit muddy/greenish. Have you looked at String? We used this in a North facing room in our previous house and it looked great, have also used it for clients and they were all pleased with it (I dabble in interior decoration work when I am not trying to do up ramshackle old houses/gardens!).

Oops! This should work

Our fabric

Pale Powder

Hay

flooring

Your fabric and floor choices are lovely, I think I'd opt for Hay or a similar colour rather than Pale Powder which looks like it might be a bit chilly in a North facing room.
Do have a look at String too, its similar to Hay but less grey IMO, a bit of a "cleaner" colour if that makes sense?

Thank you! There's a place nearby that has all the F&B colours painted out on boards, so I'll go and try them out there. I don't think I want grey sneaking in to my colour scheme.

Now, the next question is, how many electricity sockets? Would 4 sets of 2 spread around the room be enough?

Yes 4 sets of 2 sounds perfect for a guest room.
Have you found any nice table lamps etc?

By a lucky chance, my mum was getting rid of two table lamps painted duck egg blue, so I snaffled those up and put new cream shades on them. They go very well with the duvet cover, so I think I'll keep those.

I'm looking out for a standard lamp to suit.

Would we need more sockets if it were to end up as child's / teenagers bedroom? I wondered if we should put in an extra two by the window in case someone had a desk there with a computer and so on.

Thank you, Pannacotta - I really do appreciate your time and input on this!

No problem!
I tend to put at least a double socket in every corner in bedrooms but if a desk would be too far from one of these, then yes I'd add another close to the possible desk location. Its far easier to do this now rather than after the room has been decorated/carpeted.

Is the room likely to change use? Have your DCs got their own rooms (have just realised that while I know lots about your house and garden I have no idea about your kids!).

Oh, I'm thinking insanely far ahead, here - in fact, realising how theoretical that last question was is making me chortle.

I don't actually have any children yet, but if I had more than one child, then when the younger child got old enough not to be at the end of the house near us (are you following me here?), then they'd have the option of moving down to this bedroom. So we're talking about a non-existant child's convenience when doing his / her GCSEs here! So that would actually be in approximately 19 years time. Ahem.

Having written that down, I might not worry too much about about exactly how the theoretical child is going to plug his / her laptop in in 19 years time. No doubt they'll all be powered by algae or something by that point, and plug sockets will be irrelevant.

Gosh no in that case I'd set it up as a guest room and worry about extra plugs down the line, you may even have moved by then!

I did wonder how you managed to do lots of garden visiting, for me this isn't an option with two very lively (one slightly feral) DSs...