What’s the best home decorating decision you’ve ever made?

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

What’s the best home decorating decision you’ve ever made?

Tiles.png

 

Hello everyone,

 

When you move into a house, often one of the first things you do is plan out in your head what you would like it to look like and where your belongings will go. What colour you will paint each room, the furnishings, the flooring and then there are the decorative touches. For me, I think it is often the little decorative touches that make a place unique and feel like home.

 

Speaking with you here in the CC, I know you put a great deal of effort into creating a welcoming environment for your guests and this got me thinking about the favourite things you have done in decorating your home.

 

Perhaps you decided to remove a wall enabling light to flood in, perhaps it was your bold use of wallpaper in your living room, perhaps it is the amazing table you built for the kitchen, perhaps it is your colourful use of tiles in the bathroom, which your guests alway comment on!

 

Please share what your favourite decorating decisions are and feel free to share any photos.

 

Thanks,

 

Lizzie


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58 Replies 58
Marit-Anne0
Level 10
Bergen, Norway

Maybe not my best or my favourite, but my latest.  We own a little holiday home in France that is rented for approximately 5 months during season and serve as our place in the sun during winter months. High end it is not, but comfortable enough for a holiday home and like @Dayna7 we will have to think about the practicality, safety, economy what can break and what could get stolen.  And we need to think saving space rather than to fill a mansion.  And still trying to make it attractive and looking good in photos.

My last guests broke a cute little framed mirror in the toilet, so I decided that is not going to happen again. Off to the diy store, I bought the cheapest standard mirror, glued it to the wall and framed it with mosaïc tiles. It is not going to fall off the wall ever again.

 

  Toilet mirrorToilet mirrorIn the same toilet I used to have a framed picture, some guests managed to break that too some years ago, so I had to think about some replacement.  On a trip to Portugal I decided to look for some decorative tiles and came across this cute little partridge in a workshop. It went up on the wall, framed with some matching border tiles from the diy shop, walls painted to match et voila ! A result I am pleased with and a souvenir from a trip to Portugal.

 

Tile partridgeTile partridgeThe tiled kitchen counter tops are an all time favourite, but they were hastily chosen in boring beige and not worthy of a photo.  My husband wanted solid wood countertops, but when I said it is going to be your job sanding them down after every season, he changed his mind 🙂

I do not have a receipe to discourage theft @Dayna7 except not having things worth stealing.  

 

 

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

I think the mirror looks great and I would have never guessed you made it yourself @Marit-Anne0. This is a great tip and makes it easier to create something that will fit your colour scheme too - all you have to do is find tiles you like. 🙂

 

I'm sorry to hear your husband didn't get his solid wood countertops, I bet it has saved him quite a few hours though in hindsight. Did he get anything else instead to make up for it, like a wooden kitchen table? hehe

 

 

 

 


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Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


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I will make him a wooden table or writing desk!  I make live edge slab wood tables of various

sorts, functions and sizes!Will make custom pieces to fit your home!Will make custom pieces to fit your home!The cedar and black walnut headboard is in one of my 2 Airbnb rooms.  I'm making another now which will have LED lights spelling "Bon Soir" shining through a painted headboard.  I make bar tables, coffee tables, serving trays, lights, etc., out of wood and metal.   

 

I recently removed 40 year old wallpaper covered in mauve background with purple and green grapes. It was a very busy print.  It took 4 complete days to get the old wallpaper of the dining room plaster walls, but I repainted the room a pale silver blue pearl, with creamy offwhite wainscott and trim.  It brought a level of serenity to the room I had never felt comfortable in prior.   

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

This is really interesting to hear @Kimberly136, that you are a carpenter. Have you made lots of things for your Airbnb listing? There are so many creative people here in the Community Center. 

 

Your newly decorated room founds very calming, it is funny I love busy wallpaper and am a fan of the Arts and Crafts, like William Morris, but I think you have to careful with how much you use and sometimes it is nice just to have a bit of a change. 40 years is certainly a good innings!

 

How did you go about re-doing your room, have you been thinking some time about the colour?

 

 


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Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

Hi Lizzie, 

 

I have only just started this furniture line in March of 2017, but so far have made two headboards, 3 small occasional tables, 2 writing desks and 4 dining tables, a bar table, and a few smaller pieces.  I haven't sold any yet, am still working on the website and pitches to local retailer and designers, so they are scattered throughout my home, so each Airbnb room has a writing desk for business travelers, and one has a cedar and black walnut headboard.  

 

I have a couple pics of the dining room reno, attached as well as a couple of the tables. bar table[Well, I tried to insert images, but unlike the other day where this app let me retrieve an image from my laptop, it doesn't seem to be working that way today, so I have that partial description of "bar table" showing, it won't let me remove it and I can't seem to attach any photos at all.]

 

I rent this home, and it took a year for the owners to give me permission to remove the wallpaper. I think if it was on an accent wall I would have been more ok with it, but it was seriously outdated and had a few tears, but 4 walls of it literally induced headaches for me.  I also paint and am a photographer, so blank walls serve better as back drops for my art. 

 

Is the place you showed the picture of with the blues/greens in your home?  I love that whole look!  Those are my favourite colours. (Blues, greens, purples, too). 

@Kimberly

My husband is quite a handyman and a decent woodworker actually.

I am quite pleased with my workstation made from teak shelving and a kitchen unit from Ikea.

 

Work stationWork station

Work station 2Work station 2

 

 

 

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

It looks very smart @Marit-Anne0. I particularly like the extra little shelf for the printer, it frees all that space up below it. 🙂 Is this in your own house or for your guests?


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Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

@Lizzie

It is our holiday home/second home/winter residence/place in the sun and the very work station I am sitting at this minute.  

Rental season is from May through September approximately and many returning guests.

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Aw very nice @Marit-Anne0. I can picture you working away there now. I hope the Winter sun is flooding through those lovely large windows as we speak. 🙂


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Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@LizzieI'm always trying to do stuff to improve my home and it's been a massive renovation, so it's really tricky to choose one thing.

 

I guess the thing I've done which makes the most impact is putting pitched ceilings in the top two bedrooms. These were perfectly decent sized rooms before, but the ceilings on that floor aren't particularly high and there were no nice original features like cornices or ceiling roses.

 

I think the pitched ceilings (they have chandeliers which you can't really see here as it's difficult to get the full height of the rooms in) give them a 'wow factor' as well as increasing the light and space.

 

Here are some photos of the rooms while they were being gutted and how they look now.

4891_101886566882_3104992_n.jpg

Stockwell-SW9-london-houses-043-1200x781.jpg4891_101897191882_3380505_n.jpg top front 1.jpg

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

It is so good that you took the before photo @Huma0, otherwise I don't think anyone would ever believe you when you described what it was like before. It is just an amazing transformation. 

 

I like the way you have raised the ceiling, it certainly makes the room look larger and I imagine the use of white paint helped with this too. It must have been a huge job though. Have you created this across all of the rooms?

 

 


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Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Lizzie

 

Thank you! Yes, it is quite a big and messy job. Some of the hosts on the forums have amazed me with their DIY skills, but this is not something I would ever try to do myself, so it did cost a fair bit of money in terms of labour. I thought it would be worth the investment in the long term though.

 

I have only done this with the two bedrooms on the top floor of the house. There were shallow attics above, which weren't particilarly useful and with no access to the roof, and were definitely too low to do do a loft conversion. The other bedrooms and living rooms don't have the space above them to do this, but they are also on floors with high ceilings and original features like cornicing and picture rails, so they didn't really need it.

 

I guess at the time my house was built, the top rooms would have been for children and/or servants, so they didn't bother with high ceilings and fancy features for the likes of them!

Nice job @Huma0 

Marzena4
Level 10
Kraków, Poland

@Lizzie Definitely putting wood-like tiles in the hall - obscure any stains:

gres.jpg

// "The only person you can trust is yourself"
Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

That is a very nice floor @Marzena4. 🙂

 

So just to check, are the tiles made of wood or another material?

 


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Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.