Here's one I made earlier...

Hello again my lovelies!

Remember me mentioning my custom-made curtain ties?  Well, I tried to find some nautical curtain tie-backs online - I tried Ebay and Amazon, as well as just Googling for pictures, but I couldn't find anything suitable.  So I did what everyone who has ever watched Blue Peter does - I made my own!

I took a curtain ring (I have a few of these spare, as I can't stand curtains with rings and hooks!) like the one above.  I unscrewed the metal hoop, and put this aside for later.  I painted it white, using the emulsion that I used to paint the walls and ceiling. I then found some string and using blue painter's tape, taped it onto the ring in four places to look like a life ring:

I then screwed the set-aside metal hoop into the wall and hung the miniature life-ring onto it.  Doesn't it look cute?! I love miniature things anyway, and it was lovely to think that I could make something so useful and theme-friendly! 

The rope that holds the curtain back is an actual curtain tie, minus the nasty looking tassle that was on the end. I cut off the tassle, and put a couple of knots in the rope - I never went to Scouts so my knots are very boring, but they seem to do the job! The rope loops around the curtain and holds it back perfectly.  Voila! A custom-made curtain tie-back!

Now it's time for the fun part - accessorising the room!  Look at this lovely glass float my other half's mum bought for me while at a local Sealife Centre:

 

It reminded me of the ceiling of my favourite London nightclub, Mahiki...

...but obviously I don't have as many as this!

Whilst shopping at my local garden centre (when I was younger I used to think garden centres were a bit dull, but now I love having a little potter around to see what I can find!), I spotted this cute candle holder that I thought would go really well in my room:

Isn't it sweet?  The garden centre have a special section just for beach/nautical themed things, but it looks like they are selling off what they have and aren't getting any new pieces in - what a shame! I put a cheap blue candle in it to begin with, but I've just started getting into Yankee candles, and bought this one last week:

This one is called River Valley and would go nicely in the lighthouse candle holder. I do love the smell of Yankees! I get most of mine from Yankee.co.uk, as they do great deals and lovely gift boxes too.

I must dash - I need to get ready for a family get-together to celebrate my Grandma's 80th birthday!

Stay tuned for more accessories for my room!

Flourishing Furnishings!

Happy Saturday!

It's a perfect time for me to sit down and share some more of my nautical design ideas with you.  As you may remember, last week I showed you the colour ideas for the paint, and the lovely beach hut canvas I picked up from B&Q.

Next thing for me to do was decide on furniture and furnishings to give the room that beach-kissed look!  I wanted to furnish the room on a bit of a budget, especially as I still have the whole house to decorate yet!

I decided on plain white, lined curtains, as I wanted them to look a little bit like sails on a boat, if that doesn't sound too strange! Do you know how difficult it was to find the right size, reasonably priced, plain, white curtains? I looked everywhere, but eventually found these on Amazon.co.uk. They are ring topped, as I find all that messing around with curtain rings and hooks time-consuming and fiddly!  

 You might be able to see the little tie-backs in the photo - these are my own creation and I will explain more about these later.  I have a net curtain in the window at the moment (it was there when I moved in) and I'm not sure whether to keep this or not - what do you think?

This is my idea for bedside drawers - the white two-tier unit and baskets are both from B&Q www.diy.com and I thought they were just perfect for the look I am trying to create. I toyed with the idea of tying some rope to the handles but decided to leave them as is for now. 

I already have a very standard double divan bed in the spare room, so thought I'd splash out on a new duvet set to give it a bit of a seaside makeover.  It's surprising, again, how few shops and online retailers produce reasonable nautical bed covers - I didn't want to be spending too much but I wanted them to be just right.  So I found these on Amazon.co.uk (it's becoming a firm favourite for furnishings, which I never thought could be possible!):

This is the pillowcase for the set, and I love the navy and white stripe pattern - it reminds me of a good old-fashioned deck chair on Brighton beach!  The quality of the material isn't amazing, it could be a bit softer but it looks the part, and will probably only be used a few times a year when we have guests to stay, so until I find a set of better quality, this will be good enough!

 

Look at this lovely lightshade I found!  I got it from a seller on ebay.co.uk called wallpaperlampshades, who creates every item to order, and offers a variety of colours and patterns for light and lamp shades, made from wallpaper materials. This one is perfect, and matches the duvet set beautifully! I might return for some smaller ones when I find suitable little bedside lamps!

Anyway, must dash.  Check back to see the lovely little ornamental nautical things I found out and about!

Bye for now!

The Blues...

Hello my DIY domestic goddesses!

Following on from my last post of nautical bedroom ideas, my first task was to decide on colours.  I loved the pale/baby blue wall colour from the Lazy Days guest bedroom photo, so I went to my favourite DIY store, B&Q, to check out their Colours range.

The 3 tester pots above are (from left to right) Clear Sky, Water and Sky.  I liked the look of the colour Sky best, but it's always a good idea to buy tester pots so that you can paint a patch on the wall and get an idea of how it will look once it's dry.  It turned out that Sky was a bit too dark, and Water, which is a kind of duck egg colour, was a bit too green, and would probably be suited better to a baby's nursery or something similar.

Next task - decorate the room!  Well, to be more precise, undecorate the room!  Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of what the room looked like before it was painted, but it had dark brown doors, dark blue carpet, a kind of grey-pink textured wallpaper, and beige curtains.  A bit of a mess!  It was certainly satisfying to remove the wallpaper anyway!

It's not a great photo but it's the only one I can find from before the accessories and furniture went in. This is the colour of the walls after it had been painted, it's a lovely sky blue colour (hence the name, Clear Sky!) and it is a perfect base for the nautical accessories and furniture that I will be putting in it! 

I decided on a wood laminate flooring, also from B&Q. This one was quite reasonable, and I always try to buy expensive and bulky items like this when they are on offer - these were all 25% off so I managed to save about £50 - result!  Do you like the little wavy door handles for the cupboard? I bought this in a little shop in Canterbury, but I can't remember the name. It mainly sells handles and has anything you could imagine!
  
Also, whilst I was in B&Q, I found this lovely canvas painting which was a bargain at £9.99:

Perfect! I love beach huts and the colours in this canvas compliment the wall colour beautifully.  I even put the nail in the wall, attached the canvas to the picture hook and hung it on the wall all by myself! Girl power! Check back soon when I will show you the cutesy little accessories I bought for the room!

Bye for now!

Some inspiration...

Hello DIY domestic goddesses!

Following on from my previous introductory post, this one aims to show you where I got my inspiration from, and how I turned my ideas into interiors!  Firstly, I used everyone's favourite starting place, Google, to look for some pictures of nautical themed bedrooms. I found a lot of ideas for boys bedrooms, which were great, but not really suitable for my own spare room. 

This one I liked, as it was not too tacky and I like the simplicity of the blue and white colour scheme.  This photo is from www.decoratingideasworld.net, which is a site which gives you ideas of how you can decorate your rooms, but unfortunately information on where you can buy the materials and accessories is a bit lacking, which is what I aim to put right on this blog!  What do you think of this next idea?:

I think this idea is lovely, but a little extravagant and most probably out of my price range!! This photo is from www.izismile.com which shows other photos of this amazing design by Steve Kuhl.  I love the rope bridge leading up to the boat!  I then found this photo from www.lazydaysnewquay.co.uk:

This is the design of a room in a guest house called Lazy Days Guest House in Newquay, Cornwall.  I went to Cornwall once when I was 7 and I loved it! But then again, I love pretty much anywhere with a decent coastline!  Back to the photo - I love the blue, white and wood effect theme, and I think out of all the photos I found on the internet (and there were A LOT!), this one has inspired my spare room the most.  Now all I had to do was find paint colours, furniture and accessories for my very first nautical themed room!

Bye for now!

Nautical Beginnings...

Ahoy there!

My name is Emma and this is my very first blog post for my very first blog, so I'll explain what it's about.  Just over a year ago I bought a house and moved in, and the interior decorating was awful.  Mismatching carpets, wallpaper (yuk) and curtains that looked like they had been there for at least 30 years.  It all had to go.

In the year I have been living here, I, along with the help of my other half (who does all the difficult things like laying flooring, scraping Artex and hanging doors!) have been gradually improving the look of the house.  The inspiration for this blog came about when I realised how time-consuming it is to decide on a colour scheme for a room, and then find accessories to match the theme and colours!

My spare room is now almost complete, and it has a nautical theme, hence the name of the blog.  I've always loved anything nautical or seaside-y and would love to live by the sea one day but until then, I will have to make do with nautical decoration and accessories.

If you like interior design and accessorising, nautical-themed or not, then hopefully this blog will give you some ideas and inspiration. 


Bye for now!