Sunday 23rd May, 2010

Progress on our bedroom and my workroom

Baby steps, baby steps. I must be more patient! We finally found our new bedside lamps which were packed away in boxes in the shipping container.  Well, Peter found his first.  They hadn't been packed together.  They didn't have globes so we were very conscientious and bought the power-saving ones for them.  Peter started to put the globe into his lamp - and the attachment broke.  I was rather cross - he must have been rather careless, I thought.  Several days later we finally found mine. I very carefully inserted my globe - and the attachment broke! Ooops.  My apologies, Peter.  Today we bought new attachments - and normal globes.  And tonight I am quite chuffed with myself because I have replaced the attachments, re-attached the wires etc, and put the shade back on.  Nothing major but I've never done it before so it is something new.  I insisted on normal globes because they seem to be smaller in the throat or whatever you call it than the power-saving ones.  Besides, they are brighter and I want to be able to read in bed.

It took a long time for us to decide on a colour scheme for our bedroom.  We couldn't decide what we wanted.  We just knew we wanted to get rid of the pink walls and the floral border around the cornice at the top of the walls.  It was very pretty when it was done, but is now very dated and badly needed replacing.  A couple of years ago I bought a gorgeous off-white damask-type quilt cover with matching pillows etc - the whole kit and caboodle.  A very expensive one, that was on sale for a greatly reduced price.  Still very expensive for me, but so lovely.  But I refused to put it on the bed until we painted the room.  I'm so glad I did too because our idea of colour schemes has completely changed in the meantime.  The walls were going to be a vibrant blue, with this off-white quilt in contrast.  Then I pieced together a patchwork quilt in quite different colours and we both fell in love with it.  It is in colours ranging from cream to a rusty-burgundy colour and a mixture of log cabin and hand applique.  As you can see, it has been pieced but isn't quilted yet.  That is one of my patchwork aims for this year. 

So then I thought that maybe we would go for a pale colour for the walls, and Peter agreed.  We weren't sure whether to use the same green we have used in the rest of the house (it would go well with the green in the quilt, and look great with the damask set) or to choose another colour.  After looking at the colour chart Peter suggested a colour called 'True Sand' which turned out a bit dark but after lightening is the perfect match for one of the colours in the quilt (quite by accident).  So we are going to take a bold step and try to match the rust colour for a feature wall behind the bed.

Today we bought a new light for the ceiling and last night I measured the new curtain for the window.  So I feel the room is coming together bit by bit.  It would be good if we could find our new bedding in the storage container though vbg!

And as for the workroom, it might seem strange to be bothering about putting up a curtain rail in there, but we need to do that  as a priority.  Or at least the brackets for the rail - simply because Peter will have to move the shelving units a bit to do so.  Which means I can't put things away on the shelving until the curtain brackets are put up.  And that means that the workroom is rapidly filling up with boxes and containers that I cannot unpack.  And the lounge room is also filling up with miniature containers that don't have shelves to put them on yet, because I need more shelves put up on the opposite side of the room too.  Grrrrrr. 

However, while we were shopping for the attachments for the lamps today we did buy a television aerial and fittings for the workroom side of the house, and lights for the bedroom and workroom.  And a television that I can use in the workroom too.  We were supposed to get the timber for the shelving that I need too, but we left the measurements at home.  Clever. 

And now we have the light for the workroom we can get an electrician and have it installed, and get rid of the downlights that won't stay working for more than half an hour.  They have been trouble ever since they were installed and now won't work at all.  I have had to depend on two standard lamps for light.  And it will be nice to have an attractive light in the bedroom too.

So - as I said.  Baby steps.  But we will get there, and it will be lovely.  Soon I hope to go looking for some sort of artwork to go on the wall behind the bed.  Oh - and for a bed!  That would be nice.  Photos soon, I hope, to show progress - hopefully there will be progress soon lol.