Pretty in Pink

My bedchamber, the boudoir, my sleeping quarters, the master bedroom...this room is my escape. Its the place that is just mine, where I can escape. Therefore, I wanted it to be calming, peaceful and a soothing place to be in.

Now a colour I would NEVER associate with myself is pink. I don't wear it, and don't feel a particular draw to it in general. So the fact that as an adult woman, I have chosen to have a fantastically feminine bedroom in such a flirtatious, captivating, aphrodisiacal, lascivious colour as pink suprised me a little! It all happened when I bought a painting in an auction. Initially I actually bought the picture for the frame. However, the more I looked at the painting in it, the more I fell in love with it, the brushstrokes and colours were exsquisite. So my whole room became designed around a picture I paid less than £10 for, because I initially wanted the frame.

You'll see from the photographs that the picture was a large painting, of what looks to me like, hydrangeas. It is beautiful even if it's slightly damaged.....more to the point, the flora was pink. I figured a white wall wouldn't pick out the different tones enough. I set about finding a dusty pink that I liked enough to do a feature wall in. Good old Annie Sloan's chalk paint in Scandinavian pink was the very tone. Not saccharine, bubble gum pink, and I could tone it down further with a coating of talc (I used imperial leather talcum powder as it was on offer)!...try it, it works a treat! As a side note, my Dad did ask if I had a womb complex, with the pink thing. But I think (despite no longer having a womb), that I am completely comfortable with my prenatal existence and have no desire to replicate my fetal existence..please don't take this musing seriously!!!

When I was a teenage girl my bedroom was messy...I mean REALLY messy. I always dreamt of having a pretty room, with a dressing table and a matching vanity set. In reality it was covered in Motorhead posters (partly to hide the vile 70's wallpaper), the bed was propped up with an old Tonka truck, I collected animal bones, had pet rodents and there were clothes and records everywhere. My best friends also used to come and hang out and we'd flick jelly and marshmallows onto the ceiling, then date them to see who's stayed up the longest. Mum said it made her despair, and pretty much ignored the state of it. So even if I had a pretty bedroom, chances are I'd have trashed it in due course!

The bedroom,had built in wardrobes when I moved in, they were discoloured yellow pine & pretty gross. Yet they had the look of shutters, which I thought if I could make more 'vintage' would look fine. I set about sanding and painting in a haphazard way to get an aged look, added new ceramic door handles & Dave added some structure inside.

I ripped up the carpets and found beautiful floorboards underneath, these needed a woodworm treatment, sanding and varnish, but they came up a treat. Parts of the room had black streaks running down. We were told there was a fire in that part of the house as the ceilings have been rehung (badly, that's a job for another year). Meaning all woodwork and walls needed a repaint. I kept all of the rest neutral as I wanted my other pictures and bits and pieces to do the talking.

We slept on an air mattress on the floor for around a month (which used to deflate during the night, resulting waking up on a hard floor), then used the kids mattresses, finally upgrading to a sofa bed. The curtains were an old pentagram scarf pinned up to preserve modesty! Eventually, after six months of this camping, I got my old bed assembled and put some curtains up....it was beyond bliss!

This weekend we put the final pictures up and got the dressing table in place. The room looks beautiful. I actually have an alluring, and relatively sophisticated boudoir, for the first time in my life and that makes me very happy!