Monday 12 January 2015

Banishing the beige

We have been gradually doing up our house since we moved in 6 years ago. It has been pretty slow going because we moved in with a toddler and a 10 week old baby, and as soon as the baby turned two, had another one. Then just as he turned two, we moved abroad for two years.
 
We are back from the land of sunshine to the land of driech and drizzle, or so it seems at the moment. It is sleeting sideways outside my window right now. The thing that has struck me most about our lovely house now that we are reinstalled, unpacked and back into the swing of life is that the bits that we have not yet tackled (which if I am honest is most of it) are beige.
 

Yup that would be a beige ceiling, beige walls, a beige carpet and a beige chair (of which there are two) in my living room. I do make attempts to inject colour but there is no getting away from the beige. Except that soon there will be... Very soon I plan to wield a steam stripper, a sander, rollers and paintbrushes. Since we got home I have been waiting. Waiting for our stuff to arrive, waiting to finish unpacking, waiting until after Christmas, but the waiting has to stop and it's days are numbered.

I do however have to weight until J can help me shoehorn the furniture into the rest of the house so until then I have been busy playing. I have taken the poor forsaken mantel that looked like this...


 Removed the DVD cases...


Chucked the candle stubs and banished the bits of broken Christmas decoration...


And primped and fiddled and gathered the brightest objects I could find around the house to inject a shot of colour into the room. I can almost feel the beige quaking with fear at the sight of some knitted bunting.


Daffs, beautiful daffs that warm the cockles of my heart, and a dangly toy from the boys room that has been waiting to be fixed for ahem months. (It is still waiting.)


A sun hat too floppy to actually wear, paper windmills from a wedding we couldn't get to and a spot of coloured glass.


It is still dank and dark and gloomy outside, but inside I have a pleasing spot of colour.


Time to hit the paint charts to find something that isn't beige...

xx

8 comments:

  1. What a lovely mantle, you can't, in my opinion, beat a splash of colour! :) xxx

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  2. The mantel shelf looks lovely, the vibrant colours on the black are so cheery.
    Julie xxxxxxx

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  3. Your mantel is lovely!!! The fireplace is too! It definitely banishes any thought of beige and looks so cheerful which is what is needed at this time of year isn't it. We have a lot of beige here it seems, but I try and think of it as a backdrop for adding colour in the other things! xx

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  4. Lovely & colourful now! Mine is looking a little grim at the moment.

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  5. Oh, what a great New Year's project! Ban the beige! Do show us the transformations as they happen. Happy New Year Eleanor! xCathy

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  6. It's amazing how a little bit of colour can lift a room. Now the fun bit starts, choosing colour schemes.

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  7. Beige is a great canvas to work with! A few colourful cushions, rug and pictures and you'll have beat the beige into submission (oh and of course, a great big bunch of your favourite flowers to reward you for all your hard work) xxx

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