ONE ROOM CHALLENGE (Week 8) - A Small Guest Bedroom Makeover

This week was exciting and stressful: whether I am able to finish everything, whether any problem comes up in the last minute, am I able to arrange the installing, the photographing etc, it depends on so many people, not just me....but here we are, the room finished and photo shoot taken place. Received the pictures today and I am VERY happy with them. It was difficult to choose which to put on this blog because they were all so good. A big thank you Ross Fraser for the fantastic photos!

About the room: a tiny guest bedroom in a Victorian house in the heart of Edinburgh. It only had a double bed, a wardrobe and three doors because originally it wasn't made for a bedroom, but probably a walk-through wardrobe/storage. I wanted to either hide or make a purpose for the door openings and wanted to make the bedroom cosy and well functional.

The window looks north and the light that come in is cool, so my preference was a warm colour, but also something dramatic. The owner likes natural colours and we settled on a beautiful natural shade of green - Jewel Beetle from Little Green. We also got the picture rail in Citrine from the same company...

The guest bedroom is owned by John Ennis, the founder and curator of Journey in Design. Thanks for trusting in me with the makeover and for making it as easy as possible.

John had this beautiful tapestry from Africa that he wanted to use in the room...

I made most of the work myself with little help, including painting the walls, lining, trimming and installing the tapestry, making and installing a roman blind with blackout lining, making a valance for the bed, sewing cushions, installing the wall lamps, pictures and the wallpaper on the door. My background is in soft furnishing and upholstery. I am also an enthusiastic (though not too experienced) DIY person.

Fabrics for the cushions and valance are from Yorkshire Fabric Shop, while the rust coloured linen is from eBay. The round cushion is from IKEA...I could not resist when I went to shop last week, the colour is perfect for the room. The wall lamps are from MADE. The double arm is very practical and the dark green colour help them blend into the room so well.

The coolie lamp shade is from Dunelm. It was too yellow, but the size and shape were perfect so I painted with a rust colour acrylic paint and the supposedly ombre effect turned out to be interesting when the light is on...

For the headboard I got help from artist Andrew Mcdonald. He made all the the woodwork and and I helped with wallpapering it and waxing the wood. Thank you Andrew, the headboard is beautiful.

The real grasscloth wallpaper is from Galerie wallpaper. I used coloured beeswax for the wood. The first layer was antique pine, but I felt it was too yellow and light so I used a second layer in dark jacobean oak colour.

For me a room is never complete without some plants and flowers. I found this cutie in IKEA. It perfectly goes with the interior and especially with the tapestry...