Not all renovation projects need to involve demolition and mess and heavy tools and living with dust and dirt. I like to think that’s all kind of behind us – at least for now, but we never say never. These days, our renovation projects are quite small scale, very sedate, quite tidy and always done by us. It’s a nice position to be in, in the journey of our home. I quite like not having to haul the Henry hoover up (or down) three floors to get rid of thick layers of dust and plaster. These days, a bit of a tickle with a damp cloth, seems to be what’s involved in reno clean up.
Our upstairs landing has always been a bit of nothing space. We have tried, over the years, to make it into something, but nothing has ever really felt quite right. Until now, and I think we’ve finally achieved what we’ve always wanted, but not really known that we do. It now ties together the upstairs floor, and rather than just being a space to walk through, it’s almost become a room of its own.
Floating shelving has been fitted in the corner outside the main bedroom. We don’t have a socket in the hallway – something on the “to-do” list – and so we have to think about lighting. The two wooden slatted lamps are perfect as they are battery operated and on timers, meaning we have lovely shadows cast across the landing, when it’s dark. The two copper Moroccan style lanterns were bought a few years ago, and now seem to have found their home, after being fairly nomadic. These lovely little baskets are the perfect storage place for batteries for the lamps and tealights for the the lanterns.
The wooden floors throughout the house are painted a very deep navy, and walls are all white. The ceiling is very high with original beams, which we painted a very soft grey to match the woodwork, so the overall feeling is now of space. Despite there only being one window, it’s a very light and airy part of the house, but we’ve created a more wintery cosy feel with the addition of big, thick mustard coloured rugs. The wall where the window is, is still natural stone, although completely cleaned up and painted white. I’m at that stage with our house, where I’m kind of over the original stone work and depending on how much longer we are here, plans are being made to plaster all walls. However, they’ve not been plastered yet, so in order to hide away the stones, we’ve hung floor length sheer, muslin drapes. These don’t block out any light, but add softness, which I think was originally missing. The addition of a mustard yellow Moroccan leather pouffe adds a little bit more interest – and helps create a little Moorish corner in our home.
