Repurposing Space

For the past two months, we’ve been on a huge mission of changing the house around. Switching rooms around, moving furniture, redecorating, and changing spaces around to really work for our family. It’s a work in progress, done as and when we have time, and the resources to do what we want to do. We’re also trying to use as many recycled materials as we can, upcycling existing things we have rather than purchasing new.

Our house had pretty much been laid out in the same way since we moved in, three and a half years ago. While it worked pretty well, there were a few things that didn’t flow as well as they could. Our house is a five bed, though as the fifth bedroom is the extension at the back of the house when we moved it we used that as an extra living space and just had the four bedrooms upstairs.

This summer felt like the right time to change that around, so I’ve moved the master bedroom down to the extension {giving me an en suite -fancy!}, Kiki moved into my old room, and Beastie out Baya’s room and into Kiki’s old room. We seem to have spent the last two months playing musical chairs with furniture and rooms – working our way around in circles to try and get things sorted.

Once we’d emptied the den, we painted one wall, the bathroom as well as some furniture in a gorgeous teal-y colour that really made the room pop. We’re in the middle of making a pallet bed, that is half finished but still waiting for the final layer then I’ll share some proper photos of the room as it is seriously lush! We repurposed furniture we already had for the space, giving it new life with a lick of paint and new handles on the drawers and wardrobe. The only thing we had to buy other than paint was a new mattress.

With me {finally} out of my old room, Kiki could move in. She lucked out as I left my old furniture in there – so she now has a king size bed and two giant wardrobes {though one is a storage one for extra coats and Christmas stuff}. She’s still deciding if she wants to paint any walls, and we have a desk to build into the alcove for her, and I’ve promised her some fairy lights to put up as well. I think she’s loving having a giant bed to curl up in!

Next up is Beastie’s new room. We’ve gotten as far as wallpapering one wall in some gorgeous Graham and Brown star wallpaper I’ve had in the cupboard for years. He wanted a slide bed, so that’s next on our to build list. We’ve just been given a whole load of wood after a friends neighbour had their porch taken down, so now we have the supplies to build it – it will be built in where the mattress is now, mid-height so he can have a slide down and a little hidey hole underneath to go and hide in. Again, we’re upcycling Kiki’s old cabin bed and the wood we’ve been given to build him a whole new bed – so other than some screws, we don’t have to buy anything to make it.

Baya is happy to finally have a room to herself! She’s always shared with someone, though there were times when Beastie’s things were in her room but he was still sleeping with me. Now though, she has a room totally of her own – space to have her gym mat out all the time, and she’s gotten the sofa we’ve moved from elsewhere in the house. Not much needed doing in her room, as we painted last year, though we’ve promised her some more shelves to display her knick knacks on.

Downstairs got the repurposing treatment too. The living room is our family space, yet the way it was laid out before didn’t really make the most of just how much room there was in there, with the sofa’s in the middle of the room there was a lot of wasted space. So they were pushed right back which opened up the room and gained us a lot of room. We’ve mounted the TV on the wall, and gotten the fireplace working so we can have an actual open fire – bliss! It’s amazing what a difference just moving furniture around can have, it feels like a totally different room, and the extra space makes such a difference when all six of us are in there.

The sideboard that once held the TV in the living room got moved out into the hallway to replace the bureau we had in there, the cupboards hide {some of} our shoes and keeps it looking a little tidier and the top gives us a great place to keep things.

With getting rid of our den, that we used for a craft space, everything had to be condensed into one room. We decided to get rid of the sofa that was in there, as we didn’t really use it {it went up into Baya’s room}, I put our craft table back into the playroom, and used the bureau for extra craft storage.

There are still things to get done – big things like bed’s to be built, as well as little cosmetic details here and there. But already the house is feeling like a different place, the space is working for us much better and things seem to be flowing better all around.

As soon as projects get finished off, I’ll share more details – especially of my room and Beastie’s bedroom.