In the 21 years I have lived in my current house, my bedroom has been decorated only three times.

Whilst I have altered the furniture, curtains and duvets, the wall colours have pretty much stayed the same. In fact, the first decoration was actually not mine, but the children’s.

We moved in when they were four years old and I decorated the whole room in a jungle theme. It had blue walls with sponged clouds, a yellow paper ball light-shade for the sun, and big leaves all around the bottom of the walls up to around waist height in two shades of green.

They had two single wardrobes, one with a lift up top cabinet. I added brackets, a piece of plywood to look like a roof with bamboo on it and painted a big arched doorway so it looked like a mud-hut. I took lots of pieces of bamboo and wove them together and stapled them to the front of the other wardrobe so it looked jungle like and rustic.

I even did a full size cartoon monkey on the back of the door for fun.

And they loved it (and if I am honest, so did I)

Sadly I don’t have any pictures that I can show on here.

Fast Forward a few years and they wanted to have a girly bedroom and also they needed a bit more space so we swapped bedrooms and I had a jungle room I needed to do something with.

I painted three walls white and took a deep garnet red to paint a feature wall with.

The purpose for the garnet wall was I had a canvas portrait that I had commissioned by the amazing Les Toil. I added garnet voiles, candle scones and garnet and gold bedding. It was a bit like a Sultans harem and again, I was very happy with it.

Art by Les Toil

Five years on from that and we took a large family holiday to St Lucia. We bought back some painted canvases with the Pitons on them, and the garnet wall needed to go.

Art – St Lucia

In came a sky blue colour and I hung the three paintings over the bed, added blue floral bedding and curtains and the room was transformed.

Flowers and Feathers

It has been like that for nearly six years and I have to admit I had really started to hate it. To be fair I had bought some other duvet covers but had changed nothing else at all.

New Duvets. And Dog

Once I have got to the point of not liking a room, I find that I don’t particularly care whether the room is tidy, a mess or even if there is junk all over the place. I don’t like the main aspects so I almost take no pride in it.

So it was a few days ago that I decided the room needed a change.

But given that we are in a pandemic and money is a little tight, I needed to be able to transform the room for as little money as possible.

A real bargain budget, if you will.

In the room I already had two four drawer Ikea Malm units and two three drawer units The larger units used to be at the bottom of the bed and the three drawer units were used as bedside cabinets.

Malm

I decided that I wanted to try and put them all in one long line, with the two smaller units in the middle of the larger ones. This would give me a dressing table effect; I could sit on the end of the bed and do my hair and make-up by putting a mirror over the middle two units.

The main problem was the pale blue walls that I no longer liked.

Then I remembered the light slate grey paint that was left over from the dining room. If there was enough left, I could paint over the blue and the room would look totally different.

I was pretty gutted when I found there was only a smidgen of paint in the bottom of the pot. It was then that Mum came to the rescue as she had half a tin of grey paint from one of her rooms left, and said I could have it!

In the meantime, I wanted to try and do something with the cabinets, but I certainly couldn’t afford to replace them. There were 14 drawers in total and every single one was in use.

I didn’t have several hundred pounds to replace them, so how could I update them?

It was then that I thought of that good old 70’s favourite; sticky back plastic.

I knew what kind of look I wanted to go with, so I started googling Fablon and found a fantastic geometric one on Amazon.

Good old Sticky Back Plastic

The best part was that it was great value AND was available on next day Prime delivery. I popped an order on for 3 rolls which with a discount came to the bargain price of £30.00.

The paint went on first thing in the morning and looked great. It needed a second coat which was done a few hours later.

While that was drying, the drawers were dragged downstairs and emptied out one by one, before I cut and shaped sheets of the vinyl across the front of the drawers and sides.

A Bit of a Mess

I got quite into the rhythm of it and using a clean tea towel and metal paint scraper, I smoothed the sheets out across the wood so that there were no bubbles, until I had all the drawers completed.

Bubbles… Nooooooooo

It took three or four hours, but I have to say it was completely worth it.

The geometric pattern looked fresh and modern and I think goes really well with the grey wall behind it.

Pretty Pleased

Luckily I already had grey sheets and pillowcases to go with a grey/pink floral duvet cover. The reverse side is a pale dove grey which meant I didn’t need to replace any bedding during this make-over.

Finally Finished!

In fact, as the paint was leftover and gifted, the bedding already in place, the furniture completely functional (if a little boring) it was all coming together nicely.

Then I noticed the pale blue curtains.

Looking Good

To be fair, they aren’t an obvious blue and I could probably get away with keeping them.

Then I recalled the floor length pair of curtains that I had for the dining room which were a dusty heather grey. They were not doing anything else so I thought they may well work.

Loving the Look

I even had a spare pair of grey tie-backs to go with them.

Simply perfect.

The only thing I didn’t have was a mirror to go over the dressing table area. If I was going to use it for my hair and make-up, I needed to be able to see what I was doing.

The Full Effect

Looking on the B&M website, I saw a stunning mirror which although round, had a border of geometric, angled triangles around the outside.

It was classy yet functional and at only £25, a total bargain.

So…. how did it all go together?

Classy and Clean

I now have a much updated room with a cool, funky style. The geometric pattern is completely random, so each drawer is individual.

There are a lot of things still to sort through, such as jewellery boxes, wigs and toiletries, but I will do these over the next couple of weekends.

What I was left to sort out…

One of my favourite ideas is to have one corner as my ‘wig’ world. I have 6 wig heads from Shein and my collection is growing rapidly.

Wig Corner

By keeping the wigs on a head, they won’t get out of shape and go all funny. By also having them in view it means I am more likely to wear them than forget about them if they were sitting in a drawer.

All in all, the cost of my make-over has come to the grand total of £55.

A Perfect Result

I consider that an absolutely fabulous bargain as the room is totally different to before I started, with a much fresher style which will be easy to maintain and keep tidy.

Who would have thought that sticky back plastic could make such a dramatic change?

Till next time,

SPSG xxx