Nothing like an early morning spin class to start the day!! And after a pretty hard week I am glad it’s Friday!!

So, I thought I would talk about making over a room today! easy…..no! for some maybe… for others… maybe not! Firstly you don’t have to have oodles of money to make over a room; determination and grit yes but money no!! For me the most transforming thing is PAINT!It’s relatively cheap and you don’t need to be an expert to use it!! It’s just being brave enough to push the boundaries and opt for something more daring and not opting for the safe option. I say go dark as it’s such a game changer and I’m banging on about it on my blog all the time! Crossing over to the dark side has so many benefits, it creates intrigue and totally changes the look of a room in an instant, it also creates a great backdrop to art, it makes it ping and one of the key tips is adding lots of art, don’t be afraid to cover the wall, with a few big pieces or a mish mash of sizes.  I love big frames with small pictures but a large mount around the picture, a great way to break up a dark wall, this creates contrast which is so important in an interior.  So if your thinking I have no art that’s going to cost me a bomb to create this look, I often buy art from poster websites, they’re cheap as and they have some very cool vintage style posters large and small, then frame them in simple frames with large mounts!

Now the other element to making over a room is TEXTURE, you can never have enough texture, lots of different types of fabrics is good, soft velvets and textured linens work well and when I say texture this also means wall treatment, there are so many great wallpapers out there, like the one I used in the bedroom scheme below which is a printed grass paper effect, adding the texture creates the much needed warmth to a room and a focal point which takes it to another dimension.

As you can see from the before and after pictures below, except for the new furniture the main change in the rooms are the walls, adding the texture like the large padded headboard or if the budget doesn’t allow for that then just going darker.

Happy decorating, once you go to the dark side there’s no going back!!

Here are some before and after shots, and please note guys, the first picture is the before!! but you know that right!!!!

Pictures courtesy of Cubex, Finzels Reach

Have a great weekend all, not a great Saturday for me as I will be sat in the passport office waiting for a new passport, but on the plus side Portugal next week for a business trip, Yay!!