Playroom progress: Real Life edition

Let's just start with how the office looked when we moved in:

[Yellow glare and all...]

Which is basically the way it has looked the whole time we've been living in this house:

[Better lighting, nothing much different]

Until we realised one day that we never, ever used the desk, and it was literally just a storage room for keeping paper files and books. We went on a purging spree (which FYI we do all the time, but we always seem to have way too much stuff and it drives me nuts! Also, our house seems to be always cluttered and messy inspite of us both being clutterophobes. :( )... and on our purging spree we managed to clear out enough stuff that we didn't even need our filing cabinet anymore. So we sold it for a whopping $40 on Trademe, and the desk, and moved the bookcase into the lounge.

Then I quickly painted the room to a less orangey-bisque shade of neutral, by mixing together some cans of paint we had lying around which were Resene Alabaster (almost pure white) and Resene Parchment. So it's now quite close to 'Quarter Parchment'.

It was one of those spur of the moment jobs while I had the energy, and if I had been willing to buy new paint I probably would have gone with a slightly deeper neutral that had some grey tones. I think that would look beautiful with the old wooden dresser in there, and crisp white curtains would look amazing too. But as it happens, this room gets a severely yellow glow inside from the grass/dirt outside, that affects the whole hue inside the room and makes it look more yellowy than it is. Crisp white + yellowish neutrals aren't really the best combo so I'm now stumped as to what colour curtains we'll do in here. But seeing as curtains cost a RIDICULOUS FORTUNE around here we probably won't be getting any anyway. Ever.

And does it really matter when a) I don't know how long we'll be living here and b) I'd probably make the wrong decision anyway and never be satisfied and I can't make decor decisions for myself to save my life and c) my head hurts and I'm just tired of trying to make an old brown 70's house with green carpet look fabulous enough to blog about.

So I did what anyone would do and plonked down a rug that was sitting in the bottom of our linen cupboard and slightly tones down the carpet, but not enough. And then plonked down the play kitchen I made for my daughter's Christmas present which I nearly tore my hair out over as the curtain doesn't look how I wanted it to look... and either the coral or the bright mustard colour is clashing with something. Is it the green tones in the mustard that clash with the beige undertones of the walls? Because I'm picking up those vibes... not that I have colour OCD or anything.

On this wall, we have the piece de resistance that I call "Mummy hung the little blackboards too early and can't be bothered moving them, but lucky they double as apron hooks"... together with "old dresser drawers that I purchased 10 years ago and stripped 10 layers of paint and sticker off of, and have now cluttered up with things that I don't know what to do with" ....... oh and in the far right, can you spot my daughter's artwork on the wall? I mean actually on the wall, in brown crayon. Fresh this morning.

Cosy, completely undesignery, knobless.
Just 4 words that sum up how I feel about this view.

Did I say knobless?

... I meant knobless.

Mummy's attempt at stringing fairy lights up with little stuffed felt clouds and childish artworks on a rustic twine ... hanging system. I can feel the ambiance.

[Oh the precision]

 My husband has a hidden talent for art:

['Self Portrait' by daddy MacLeod]

I'm not mocking this room (kinda) because actually I like it. It feels fresh and bright and fun, and so much less depressing than the office was.  Even if most of it is haphazard and thrown together, and keeps me awake at night dreaming of new carpet, the truth is it's a lovely room. It's where I read for hours on the cushions with my wee girl (who is terribly, delightfully adorable these days) and it's where she instructs me to sit so she can bring me 'cockee and bikkits' (coffee and biscuits, fyi) which she pre-dunks for me. She knows how I like coffee, I guess?!

And also, maybe I'm kind of saving all my gorgeous and expensive design ideas for a 'dream home' one day. And obviously, that concept is pretty vague and not guaranteed to happen, but I'm (trying to be) content at the moment with this old 70's place and it's weird orangey spiced christmas cake smell that leeches out of the ceiling or something because I swear I've cleaned every nook of every cupboard and I still get greeted with eau de orange peel whenever it's warm and the house has been closed up for more than a day. Not that I have smell OCD or anything.

Oh and!!

Best part is, I actually painted the wardrobe doors.

It may have taken no less than a dozen coats (or 13?) to cover the shiny orange fake wood but we got there, and it's the first time in 2 years that there has been anything about this house that feels faintly modern.

I wish I had the energy and set-up to paint every door in our house, but that would involve more decisions (because most of our house is currently still an orangey-tinted bisque colour that looks bad with pure white doors... and I really really don't want to have to choose paint colours for our whole house when everything might change e.g. floor colours etc).... so maybe we'll just stick to doing a few of the wardrobes for now.

Could I possibly ramble my way through a blog post any more?

When this room gets changed again (dresser knobs, curtains, etc) I'll update again. It might become Ella's big girl room at some point and that will make it fun to decorate :)