Bedroom makeover Part I

When we moved into our new rental home last year, the finish was in a very poor state. However, we fell in love with the space and knew that we could turn it into something great if we put some effort into it. We had just moved out of our student rooms in the Netherlands and basically had nothing but a suitcase full of clothes, an old mattress, and a few personal belongings. 

We didn't just want to go to one store, spend a fortune, get everything at once and be done with it. We wanted to make it our own, with one-of-a-kind, vintage, and self-made pieces. Starting from zero has been a great adventure, but also takes a lot of patience, creativity and compromise (for the longest time the only thing in our living room was a couch…). We've come a long way since then and have slowly been working our way through the house trying to refinish, furnish and decorate it.

Now it's finally time for our bedroom and I couldn't be more excited! It is a lovely spacious room, with beautiful big windows and so much potential. I definitely have great plans for this room, but first we need to get rid of some of the current 'decor'.

The biggest issue for me is the carpet. I have a thing against carpets, most of them anyway. Especially in a rental home, where the same carpet has been in place for a long time… There is some overall discolouration in the walkways and some unidentified stains. All I'm saying is, I slip straight into my slippers and avoid any direct contact. Besides, the entire apartment has gorgeous hardwood floors! I don't understand why anyone would want to cover that up with carpet. So, if the state of the hardwood floors underneath allows it, that carpet will be the first thing to go.

Then there are the window treatments, aluminum office blinds. I suppose they do their job by keeping out the light, but they don't exactly bring a warm and cozy atmosphere to the bedroom. On top of that they haven't really been treated well by the tenants that lived here before us, so they are bent and dented all over. For the time being we had put up some curtains, but those will have to be adjusted as well.

The current lighting fixture is very outdated and only works when it feels like it (which is about 10% of the time). The lampshades are stained and for some reason parts of the lamp frame have been painted. The overall look of the lamp is not exactly my taste and because it hangs quite low it is very prominent.

The state of the walls, baseboard and doors isn't great either. The walls have lots of cracks, holes and smudges, the baseboards are damaged and chipped, and the doors are only half finished and chipped as well. But with a little drywall compound and a fresh coat of paint they will look fresh and gorgeous in no time.

Time to get down to business, stay tuned for updates!