Decorating Arthur's bedroom...so far...

Decorating Arthur's Bedroom: This little project has been THE slowest bedroom / nursery decoration - possibly ever! It started when I was pregnant with Arthur (before I even started blogging) and now I'm pregnant with the next baby, the nesting mode has had a full on revival! There is nothing like a massive baby bump to make you think that climbing up ladders and bending over furniture (steady) is DEFINITELY the best idea for your bank holiday weekends...

Our house was a total new build when we moved in, and apart from lots and lots of 'snagging' issues, the biggest problem for me was the colour of the walls - a magnolia yellow shade which went completely against my obsession with all things grey and neutral. We couldn't decorate straight away as we had to wait for the plaster on the walls to fully dry out, but once we discovered we were having a baby I couldn't cope with the idea of the room staying as it was. I wanted a little 'baby haven'  - little being the main word here as his room is teeny tiny - and we knew that paint fumes and new babies weren't a great mix. 

We set about choosing our perfect shade of grey, bearing in mind we had no idea at this stage if Arthur would be a girl or a boy, we wanted a gender neutral colour which would work well in a nursery. We painted a few sheets of paper in different shades from Farrow & Ball and pinned them up on the wall to check how they worked with the light in the room. As Arthur's room is so small, it casts a lot of shadows and so our chosen shade 'Elephant's Breath' worked well here as it looks much darker than I'd seen elsewhere:

Farrow & Ball - Elephant's Breath paint

The furniture in Arthur's room - a set of Ikea draws and a toddler bed/cot - are both white and so we wanted to keep this this of grey and white as much as possible. We were given a shelving unit in the form of an aeroplane with a propeller from my Nephew's old room - but this was bright blue and red! We sanded it down and added a few base coats before painting it to match our colour scheme...voila:

A few star lights and some personal items on the shelves brought this one to life a bit more...

We had been bought a gorgeous little silver star on a grey ribbon from Mamas & Papas for the nursery/bedroom door when I was pregnant:

...So we decided to keep on with the aeroplane/star/sky theme by adding a few more little  touches that would add to the room without taking up too much space:

I'd bought these little wooden stars and fixed them on with photo album 'dots' so as not to pull the paint away. Here you can see the difference in natural light above, and artificial light in the evening, below:

We searched for a long time to find the perfect lampshade. My original idea was to get a fluffy cloud light shade, before realising just how much dust it would collect and how hard it would be to clean. Eventually we came across this gorgeous aeroplane shade from Laura Ashley  in the perfect colours!...

These two paper cuttings in a frame were hand made and given as a gift by each of my (very clever) sisters:

Which brings me to our most recent addition to the bedroom decor -  this amazing aeroplane wall sticker from Loveabode....

I spent absolutely ages searching their wall murals and stickers before deciding on this one. They had some amazingly beautiful prints of enchanted forests and scenery which made me long for a dedicated playroom somewhere in the house, just so we could have an excuse to buy such a gorgeous wall sticker! Unfortunately we are limited on space, but this one bit of free wall we did have in Arthur's room was simply crying out for 'something' - and I think this was it! 

Arthur loves it, and although it is available in different colours and sizes, I think this one works well for us.

It does require 2 people really to apply this (especially if one of you is pregnant!) I made a very short video clip of how to apply this wall sticker for anyone thinking of doing this themselves and wondering what it involves and how easy it is:

We are by no means 'finished'  - there are still things we need to get for Arthur's bedroom, such as curtains (We have a white wooden blind at the moment) and some suitable bedding and soft furnishings now that he is getting ready to say goodbye to his sleeping bags!

All that dreaming about a playroom has made us look into the possibility of a little extension off the back of our kitchen...and of course we have another nursery to decorate soon too!!! (Not to mention the fact that the rest of the rooms upstairs are still magnolia...)

in which case, I doubt that this is the last home interiors post you will see from me!

Anyone else have a small space to furnish? Have you found any clever storage solutions?

Love Sarah

Why not read some of my other posts:

For all the Mummies going back to work...

Dealing with colic and reflux

Having a baby - the things they never told me

EYFS Toddler activities roundup 2

Did I have a traumatic birth?