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I recently gave Reubens room a big makeover as it was well overdue. Since we moved into this house last year, I've been adding bits and bobs trying to make it creative and colourful but it wasn't until I painted it a deep orange the other week that it really underwent a full makeover. I love how it turned out and I think it suits him so well! As it's not the first room makeover I've done in this house, I thought that I would share a few things to consider before you embark on a complete room makeover as there are definitely things that I would personally do different next time.
choosing a neutral flooring
Flooring isn't something that gets changed very often, so if I was renovating a room right down to the bare bones, I'd pick a neutral flooring every single time. Some of the flooring in my home isn't very neutral in my eyes, like my dark grey vinyl in the kitchen and mixed dark wood floorboards in the lounge. Reubens room has fairly neutral white wood flooring thankfully, so changing his laminate wasn't an issue. I'm not a huge fan of the grain of the wood but overall it's neutral enough that I can change it up to different styles without needing to get new flooring in there. My bedroom flooring is pretty neutral too as it's a nice, natural oak that can be styled in any way. If I could go back, I would have picked something similar for the lounge. I love the natural tones in the engineered wood options from Flooring365 if you're on the lookout for something that's lovely and easy to style.
figuring out the colour scheme
I'm so guilty of just jumping into renovations without thinking my colour schemes through, and thinking about how things will gel together. I think this is probably why I spend so much money and time getting rid of furniture and replacing it with new. I've also repainted my lounge only a short few weeks after painting it because I really didn't think through how the colour would look with my furniture. It's something that I've learned to be much more careful with now and I make sure I do loads of pinning on pinterest and saving images of colour schemes that work well before wasting money on the wrong paint and furniture.
measure, measure, measure
I am the absolute worst at measuring spaces and seeing what will fit where before I take the plunge and buy it. The amount of times I've ended up with things too small for a space, or worse - too big! I'm getting better with this now after making plenty of mistakes but as someone who lives in quite a small home with small rooms, it's so important. I think, even if you live in a big home it's something to consider. I am personally a lover of spaces that are busy and look homely so I'd hate to have a huge room with not enough furniture to fill it. You could even do a rough drawing of your room and scale things down to see what will go where before you make any purchases.
practicality
One of the most important things to me when I'm designing a room is that it not only looks good, but there's practicality there too. So for example, I recently bought this beautiful new cupboard in Ikea that's a gorgeous off white shade with gold hardware, but it's huge and fits so many toys in so that I'm no longer dealing with toy baskets in every corner of my lounge. I can style the top with prints, mirrors, candles and vases and inside it fits a ton of toy baskets and toys, as well as all of Rus colouring books, pens, etc. I'm all about good storage solutions that look good but are practical and that one is perfect! I recently got a new TV unit too which is also a cabinet from Ikea and that fits loads in too, so it looks fab from the outside but fits all the clutter inside. When buying new furniture or homeware I think it's really important to look at things that are handy as well as being nice on the eye. I love seagrass baskets for pretty storage solutions too.
versatile pieces
If your style changes quite a bit with new trends coming up (I know mine does!) and if you just get easily bored with your decor in general, it can make your life easier to pick versatile pieces when doing up a room. By this, I mean things like neutral furniture that you can change up with different ornaments and decor. Or another example would be something that can be easily painted. So I have a DIY fireplace made out of wood and it's super easy to change the colour of it if I wish to - so whilst it's been made a permanent part of my lounge, it can also be switched up to fit in with different interior styles.
What's important to you during home renovations?
