Tiny Dining Room Decor: I'm not afraid of dark paint!

 We spent Saturday at Homebase. Oh my god. Who knew picking paint was so hard? We already had a very good idea in mind of what we wanted...but getting it right was no easy feat. Yup, we were looking for a colour for our 'feature wall'.

I know this concept is quite old-fashioned by now, and I am personally quite taken by a modern scandinavian all-white finish. However, the bikes are being stored on the wall - as I mentioned in my previous post post - and I'm certain bikes and white don't mix well.
I wonder how on earth the apartment dwellers cope? My bike drags in half of Berkshire every time I go for a ride; today, I found a twig folded up in my tea towel. It was just resting there, wrapped up like a deciduous baby jesus. Hmm.

Anyway, we decided to make the bike wall into a 'feature wall' because A) the bikes are going to be a pretty big THING anyway and B) I'm hoping that we can put a nice dark colour on there and it'll hide a multitude of sins (read; dirt and scuffs. I've had mixed feedback on this. Someone told me it was going to end up being a 'rainy cloud room'. Another person told me it would make the room look small - we already do have a tiny dining room. Well, I'm not afraid of dark colours. Anyway, I've seen it done well in other small spaces... 

My main source of inspiration is from the amazing Carrie Clarke, whose choice of Dulux's Bowler Hat was total perfection. She made such a bold choice to go for such a dark grey against pure white, but I think it works. Her living room is quite large but it shows how effective these tones can be on an archaic, older home. It really makes things pop.

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I also took a few more ideas from Pinterest....










 We also perused a few paint catalogues (Dulux and Crown) and made a nice little mood board which I think reflects the look we want. Dark, sophisticated, but with a playful pop of colour.
I want to utilise dark colours to emphasise the light and bright details of the fireplace, which has been painted white by previous owners/tenants.

 

Then, we spent around two hours choosing paint. OH MY GOD it's so hard. Also, not cheap. Seriously, £3.99 for a Farrow & Ball tester pot? Are you laughing? The rest were between £1.50 and £2.30 each, which was better but still added up.

In order to stick to budget, we picked just eight colours. I was really sad to find that the Bowler Hat shade is not available at Homebase. We chose the closest counterparts, and also went for a few stronger blues.

In terms of quality, the Dulux paint went on the best - and the tester pot had a little brush inside it, which was really very convenient! The coverage was fantasic, too; I gave all samples two coats but really it only needed one.
The Crown paint also had a very smooth application, although the squeezy tester 'tubes' felt quite amateurish and were distinctly more fiddley. I was happy with this coverage and I really liked  the colours they had.
I was least impressed wih Farrow & Ball. For the price, and product positioned as the premium brand, I expected a lot. I felt that the paint was too watery and needed more than two coats for a decent coverage. At around £50 a tin, that's not on!
Finally, Homebase's own brands (Blue Slae & Aegea) were also very good value for money - they didn't quite match up to Dulux or Crown but are excellent on the affordability front. They certainly get the job done.

I still haven't made up my mind.... maybe tomorrow?

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Sarah

The Yup Blog

The Dining Room gets a Look-in

My bathroom journey has hit a pot-hole, and I’ve learnt a very important lesson.
Resources. Check their availability. Darn! This is the first thing you learn at marketing school! Just to give you some spiel: Your resources (Men, Money, Minutes) are vital for a project’s success and I’m missing my man. More precisely, I’m missing a builder. Through some freakish builder drought in the central Reading area, I’m without a burly pair of arms and plumbing knowledge until the end of February, so that little project is on the back burner. What’s on my mind instead? The dining room!

The dining room has been moderately neglected on the blog so far (aside from its brief mention in the Christmas post). I think it's about time it had a share of the spot-light. Introducing....

The YUP Dining Room

view from the doorway; full of light, but also junk

  I decided to put my dining room in the front room of our little terrace, which is actually furthest from the kitchen. Why? Well, that room is the first you pass when you come in off the street, so it's the most likely to become a dumping ground.

The dining room is the least used room in our house - T and I have good intentions, but often end up eating on the sofa. Therefore, a little clutter in here will help us maintain order in the rest of the house. I plan to create a beautiful yet informal space that we can enjoy, and will remain practical too.

view from the opposite corner

 There’s also the small matter of the bicycles…

looking from the window: they need a home!

Buying a house is sometimes a matter of painful compromise. Not between you and your partner, either (let’s face it, if you’re making serious sacrifices, you probably shouldn’t be buying together) – I mean in terms of want vs need. I wanted a beautiful, clean space in which I could entertain and have fancy-schmancy dinner parties… but what I needed was somewhere dry, secure and convenient in which to park my noble steed.

Hi Bikes, meet dining room wall.

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After being inspired by many an apartment therapy blog post (if it’s good enough for sophisticated new-yorkers, it’s good enough for us), we decided that the best place to store our biggest babies was right here in the house. I actually think it’s rather beautiful (although, grandparents tend to disagree). However, we did NOT have a good experience buying a bike rack. T purchased a GearUp Oak Rak (Floor to Ceiling) bike rack from Amazon at the beginning of October. It was very expensive (more than I wanted to spend) and it took a long time to arrive.


I was so angry when we opened the box. Parts were missing, and our countless attempts since to contact Amazon/the seller and get the missing parts have been futile. I do NOT recommend this seller. The goal is to have the bikes on the wall, as seen in the right picture, but.... yeah. we're still waiting.

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We also have a storage requirement. The corridor from my front door is, in my opinion, too narrow to hang coats in, pile shoes up, or dump your keys. ‘Landing strips’ are a very desirable (or essential, depending on your source) feature in a house now - no longer the hallmark of glamour models or the pages of Cosmo. That's a term for a conveniently placed coat rack and table on which to rest your hat/keys/handbag when you enter your home, as seen to the left of this text.


I hope to build that in to the dining room, creating a clever duality between storage space and entertaining space.


I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on making the most of a space like this!

A Delightful December

2014 marks the first December I’ve been able to spend in my own home, and I’ve really enjoyed it. T and I splashed out and bought our first real Christmas tree from Berkshire Christmas Trees, which cost us £50 including delivery and the metal stand. As we can’t drive, this was the most affordable option for us. The service was excellent; I rung up on the Friday and Sue was able to deliver on Sunday. She kept in touch via text, which was a really nice touch. We weren’t able to pick out our tree, which was a shame - our specimen was a bit bottom heavy – but the foliage was lush and dense. Overall, it was a really convenient, hassle-free experience.
It arrived on the 1st December (yes, I know, we were VERY early) and it’s still looking good today. I’ve not been particularly religious about watering the poor thing and it’s definitely gone thirsty a few times, so I’m really impressed with its hardiness.

I’ve never had a real tree and the needles were a bit of a shock – I’ve never hovered so much in my life! On the flip side, I was able to cut off some of the lower branches to make natural garlands for my door frames and walls. We’re lacking a mantel piece so we made do with a home-made wreath over the fireplace!
I was reluctant to spend a fortune on decorations this year. It’s been an expensive annum and I didn’t have the funds to splash out on expensive bits and bobs, so I decided to make as much of my decorations as I could. I bought some cheap twine and ribbon, and painted some keys and some pine cones white. The fox and robin were a gift from T’s parents; they’re both from John Lewis.
A Christmas dinner has become a bit of a ‘Friend-mas’ tradition, so I dutifully cooked a full roast with ALL the trimmings on Sunday 21st and had some of the gang over. I decided to cook a gammon and a rump of pork, as I find they’re the best value options when you’re trying to feed four hungry boys!

I always buy a Sainsbury’s Basics, unsmoked joint – as long as you put effort into your seasoning (cinnamon sticks, bay leaves, gloves, celery, onion and carrot) it tastes like the premium range.

Cooking Christmas dinner took me about three hours in total, but it was well worth it to see everyone’s smiling faces when it was served up. I also enjoyed the aftermath, when we were all groaning and cursing our own greed.

I'm off to Winchester tonight to celebrate Christmas with my family. Best wishes to you all!

Decorating a TINY 'master' bedroom

The house we're buying is awesome. It's in a great location and it's got character by the bucket load. It's got two HUNDRED years of experience so I think it's got pretty great at 'being a house' by now.

But, it's MINISCULE. Please enjoy the floor plan, provided for your interest/entertainment.

Looking at home design websites is terrifying. Paticularly American home design websites. Even Apartment Therapy, a site that specialises in the aesthetics of the shoe-box apartment (I've built a mezzanie out of some old pallets I found down at the train tracks and my sofa turns into a yoga mat when I remove this peice of string) still seem to have WIDTH.

We don't. Victorian terraces, once inhabited by factory workers, don't have space to swing a cat. (the cat is relieved about this)

Thankfully, PINTEREST. It has lots of lovely pictures of lovely tiny bedrooms and now I feel less perturbed by the whole situation. Here's my pick of the best... they aren't my photos, so click for source.

That last picture is my favourite, because of the storage potential.


I think I've got some good ideas for our bedroom now... what's your favourite inspiration source?  Follow my blog with Bloglovin