Brightening Up Our Bedroom for Spring

Winter seems to have rolled on long enough now and with the reappearance of some sunshine this week after all that snow, I am feeling the need to brighten up our home in time for the warmer weather. We live in a lovely bungalow but it is rented so we are a bit tied when it comes to decorating and changing things up. Our bedroom is has a feature wall which initially took some time for me to like but I love it now - the wallpaper features turquoise and grey flowers and the colours look really nice when the sun is shining through the patio doors.

Because most of our bedding was bought when we lived in our previous house, none of it really matches the wallpaper and can look a bit messy. I decided that upgrading our bedding would be an easy, inexpensive way to brighten things up and a chance to finally have a room that matched!

I began looking online and I was immediately drawn to the bedding section of JD Williams. I have previously bought clothing from them but didn't actually realise they had such a big homeware section so this was a nice surprise.

I had a rough idea in my mind of what I was looking for and the website made it very easy for me to narrow down my choices, searching for different colours, design or even thread count. I eventually decided on a crisp white duvet cover set which had a lovely patterned quilting effect across the middle. I loved the colours and I knew they would be a good match for our wallpaper.

I also got a matching teal throw which features the same geometric pattern and is made of a soft matt satin fabric. This combined with the patterned duvet cover has made a big difference to the bedroom. I love the colours, the quality is outstanding and they do indeed go really well with the feature wall.

I would also like to get some matching cushions to go with the duvet set and I did spot some when I browsing on the JD Williams site. They are the perfect colour so I think I'll definitely be getting these - the hard part will be keeping the cushions on the bed with the kids around though!!

The next thing on my list for the bedroom is to declutter which I'm sure will make a big difference to brightening the room up. My wardrobe is crying out for a sort out and I'm sure half of the toy box has made it's way into the nooks and crannies of the room! 

Once that's done, I'll be moving onto the children's rooms and seeing how I can brighten things up. Erin's room is part nursery/part office so I'll definitely be looking at some new pictures for the wall and maybe some bunting so make it a bit girlier for her. And Elliot's room needs a bit of an overhaul so that isn't a small job. In the next few weeks we'll be making a trip to Ikea to pick up some decent storage for his room and I can't wait to update things! 

Note the very bare walls!

*Disclaimer - We were sent these bedding items for the purpose of this post. All thoughts are my own and I'm now aware that I should probably iron my bedsheets!! 

Settling into our New Home - Elliot's Dinosaur Themed Bedroom

Regular readers of this blog will know that last year we had to move house twice, which was pretty stressful to say the least! We have now been in our current home for two months and we are finally starting to get settled. As it's rented we aren't able to change the decor much but I'm hoping over time we can put our own stamp on things.

We have three double bedrooms so Elliot's room is a really nice size and SO much bigger than his tiny room at our old flat. It's a good job it's big because he has alot of toys! For storage I use the large stacking drawers - he has three lots of these and it makes it alot easier to organise the toys. One set of drawers is just full of plastic dinosaurs!

He also has a large play table which has big drawers underneath to store his cars and bigger vehicles. The table was a real bargain at half price (should have been £120) from Argos and it's very sturdy and heavy. Elliot doesn't really use his cars on the table but has lots of figures such as Toy Story, Monsters Inc and Clangers that he likes to play with on there.

We decided to go with a dinosaur theme for his bedroom and I picked up some really great bits in Dunelm Mill such as the black out curtains and lightshade. They also have duvet covers and door stops which match so I will be popping back to get these soon! Obviously we can't change the wallpaper but I picked up a t-rex wall sticker from Amazon to go with the dinosaur theme. When it arrived it wasn't as big as I was expecting but he likes it! Elliot also got a 3D dinosaur head for Christmas that my Dad spent hours putting together. The t-rex looks like he is coming through the wall which is quite cool....unfortunately his bottom jaw keeps falling off so I need to get my Dad round to mend him!

Elliot is a big bookworm and has lots of books - he quickly outgrew his kids bookcase so I recently bought him a standard sized one, again from Argos. It fits in his room perfectly and I love how neat and tidy all his books look in there. Well neat and tidy until he gets them all out!! His original bookcase is still in his room but this just holds his dinosaur books now, of which he has a fair few.

Yes I tidied it especially...and no it definitely won't stay this tidy!!

When we moved in I was quite relieved to see nice big radiators in the bungalow and not storage heaters. We had those heaters in our very first house and it was freezing, it never seemed to warm up!. It means I can put Elliot's pjs on the radiator so they're nice and toasty for bedtime! (See Best Electric Radiators if you're in need of some heat in your life!)

Our next room to sort out is the office - currently the desks are covered with boxes of books that I need to unpack but I hope to bring you a blog post about it once we've made it look pretty!

*This is a collaborative post