Everything I've Learnt About Decorating Your Home
everything i’ve learnt about decorating your home
Before I get into today’s post I want to talk about what’s going on in the world right now because it’s pretty scary. Here in the UK we have confirmed cases of Covid-19 but we’re yet to go into lockdown yet but we are seeing the ripple effect of the virus as well as multiple deaths and it’s hard not to feel panicked by it all. Seeing the shelves of the supermarkets so empty and people mass hoarding supplies is nothing like I’ve ever experienced before. There is so much scary misinformation out there (try to only get your information from the World Health Organisation) and I know how easy it is to get sucked into something that you’ve seen on Twitter. Throughout this scary time of uncertainty things on this side of the internet will run, as usual, I want to provide a safe escape where people can come to when they don’t want to be bombarded by the news and want to read about something fun and lighthearted. Please don’t think just because people online are posting about something other than Coronavirus it means they’re ignoring what’s going on in the world as I’m pretty certain that will not be the case. I hope everyone is safe as they can be right now and please look after yourself and the vulnerable ones around you and take whatever measures you can to ease the strain of the situation. On to today’s blog post…
After redecorating my office within just a year of giving it a fresh lick of paint last March it felt like it was probably a good time to write this post. It’s an idea that’s been sitting in the drafts for a while but now seemed like a good time to put all my thoughts down onto my keyboard. Before my boyfriend and I started to decorate our house I had no idea just what it took and how many inevitable mistakes we would make and this is everything I’ve learnt about decorating a house.
paint can be changed
When I was younger decorating wasn't something that happened in our house a lot, my parents weren’t in the position to change around things every year so our decor choices stuck around for a long time. If we were having our bedrooms decorated we needed to be really sure we liked it as we more than likely would have it for five or more years. Growing up like that put a lot of weird pressure on me to get all my decorating choices right the first time as an adult and I feel like I’m only just learning that a simple thing like paint can be changed if you’re not a 100% happy with it. There is no denying that there is a lot of faff involved with painting and it’s pretty boring after a while but it’s not a nightmare to change and whilst there is a cost involved it’s not the end of the world to change the colour of a room a year later.
SOME THINGS LOOK BETTER ONLINE
It’s only until the past year or so that I started to come away from having every room painted white which is a design aesthetic that I adored for a really long time and whilst it’s still something I love I found myself wanting a hint of colour in our house. However, colour is hard to paint as everything looks so different online to how it looks in real life and what you see on Instagram and Pinterest is never going to be how it looks in your own house which is hard as so much of interior inspiration is taken from the internet now. Getting a tester is ideal to get a general sense of what it will look like in your house but I feel like you can never truly tell what something looks like until it’s all over the walls. Last year I painted my office a beautiful blue/green colour which I loved but then as we entered the colder months something wasn't working and in the corners, it was just too dark. So I repainted it this past week (Farrow & Ball Setting Plaster) and now it looks a thousand times brighter even on the darkest days which is exactly what I needed.
THINGS WILL GO WRONG
Whether you’re painting a wall or doing more serious renovations things will inevitably go wrong. There’s a been a lot of tears shed over blue paint around a plug socket, finding a patch of mould and then problems with having our carpet fitted and even though none of these problems was a huge problem they were still testing. Unlike when we got our bathroom renovated where we did encounter a huge stressful problem that wasn't easily fixed. Just a few days before work was due to start our builder pulled out and decided he wasn’t ready to take on such a job and we were left with over a thousand tiles and a full bathroom suite sat in our spare room whilst we desperately tried to find someone new who didn’t have a crazy long waitlist. Eventually, we did find someone and our bathroom is still my favourite room in the house that we’ve made changes to but that was such a stressful way to do our first serious renovation.
masking tape gives you a false sense of security
As we live in an old house with horribly textured walls we’ve got very little hope of ever achieving a perfectly straight line when painting but we do try with masking tape. I know masking tape isn’t the best method to use but it does help ever so slightly. However, every time I carefully apply it to the ceiling or a door frame I’m led into this false sense of security that when I remove it I’m somehow going to be left with this perfectly straight line. And obviously, I’m not left with that result and every time I feel that that twinge of annoyance but letting myself fall into the false sense of hope.
it takes a while to find your style
Whilst it would be great to move into a house where everything is perfectly decorated that is not the reality of the vast majority of people. When we moved into our house we thought we knew exactly what we wanted and looking back now some of our choices are similar to what we initially wanted but a lot of them have changed. I’m so glad that we waited to decorate even though living with someone else’s very questionable decor choices wasn’t always the nicest thing to do it made me appreciate the changes we have made even more. Tackling each room one by one worked way better for us too as trying to do it all at once would have been a nightmare and at least doing it one room at a time gives you some peace away from the mess of decorating and renovating as it can get seriously overwhelming.
