Room For Improvement

We have no room in our house that needs dramatic improvement any more. Finally after three years hard work we are at a stage where there is no major work that needs doing. I can't tell you how great that feels.

However as a slight hoarder and obsessor over pretty things and beautiful furniture I feel there is always 'room for improvement' when it comes to our home. This being that case our before pictures are not those of a DIY SOS type scenario but of a space that wasn't quite working and needed a re-think.

Although we loved this vintage school desk it was big enough for eight and with only three of us seemed silly. Our trouble with having a very large front room has always been that we feel the need to fill it. Now with Wilf being so active and needing a large space to run around we wanted to really minimise the amount of large furniture pieces and instead create a large open space.

We bought this table top for £7 and attached it to some existing stands we owned. It's great as its small enough to ensure I keep the area clean rather than pile is high with tons of things like I did our previous one.

We were lucky enough to find this vintage lampshade in a charity shop for £20. It was the last lighting space that needed a pretty shade and not the bog standard white one that came with the house. It suits the room perfectly! It even goes with our collection of shades at the other end of the room.

We had an IKEA storage unit that was housing random bits and bobs (such as miscellaneous wires) we took the doors off and shelves out and bought two £2.50 IKEA boxes instead. We filled them with Wilf's favourite toys (trains!) so that they are accessible and used the top as a coffee table.

We then filled the space they were in with vintage suitcases we had collected as a feature piece.

We both have a tendency to pick up a pretty cushion to add to the collection when we can so we also bought this one from Habitat for £10.

As a final touch - flowers for £3!

Desk - £7
Light - £20
Storage Boxes x 2 - £5
Cushion - 10
Flowers - £3

Total = £45

I'm pretty pleased with the small changes we made to improve the space and with the amount we spent. I've actually really enjoyed taking part in this challenge, whats more I've seen a few bloggers I love are taking part in it too and I'm really excited to see a little nosy into their homes!