I’ve realised I’ve only ever shared a glimpse of the spare room in our old cottage so before we moved I asked Adam to snap the den in all its glory.

With no kiddiwinks and three double bedrooms, it made sense for James and I to take a room as our own. Obviously we shared the master but we each had another room to store our clothes. While my room was polka dots and pink, James’ was the antithesis with dark furniture and wooden accents.

Despite being one of the smaller rooms in the house this area underwent a huge amount of work. When we moved in the walls had a yellow sponged wallpaper which understandably wasn’t going to stay around very long. We set to work removing the paper and found most of the plaster came off with it too. We spent many weekends taking the room back to the brick before plaster boarding and even two years after the room was plastered the constant residual dust still drove me crackers.

The walls were painted in Farrow and Ball’s Slipper Satin. I believe this can take on a pinkish hue in a lighter room, but in this east facing one it’s a warm and soft neutral. For the rest of the dapper decor we chose masculine accents in dark and moody shades.

I wrote about the search for a suitable piece of furniture in a post about the apothecary style chest of drawers. The chest was painted in Railings (not Downpipe as I originally thought!) and it’s one of my most favourite pieces. In the new pad it’s currently in the dining room acting as a bar.
I’ve tried to rack my brains to remember where we bought the black metal clothes rail from but as far as I can remember I found it through eBay. The wooden hangers were also a bulk buy through eBay too. For extra storage we bought a few canvas storage bags are from H&M and the army tin (on the top shelf) was from a place in Hove which has sadly now closed. As you may remember from my recent post I’m considering open storage in the new house too. We still haven’t made a decision on how we’ll store clothes now as James is fairly tidy but I most definitely am not.

The little wall of curiosities started off with the clock our friend Matt gave us a wedding present made out of a reclaimed pressure gauge. We then set about arranging a few novelties we’d collected from trips to Brighton, Notting Hill and various vintage fairs. The chimney breast was an awkward shape but I kind of like how we went with it and embraced the quirks.
In the other alcove we crafted a place for accessory storage using a wooden shoe rack trimmed down to size and a distressed peg rack from Burts in Brighton to hang ties and belts from.

I picked up the duvet cover from HomeSense and the blind is a gunmetal grey blackout blind found in B&Q and finished the room with a Nkuku metal cage light, also favoured by Charlotte in her home studio.

I’m feeling a little nostalgic looking back at these images. We’re so far from having even one room finished in the new house but with a bit of hard work and determination I’m sure we’ll get there.

Anyone else gone for a masculine palette in one of their rooms? Do you like to treasure trove for bits to add into your decor? What are your favourite haunts to bag a more unusual piece?

{STEAL THE STYLE}

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