Remember the early 2000s? Colours were bold and saturated and there wasn’t a lot to choose from. Pros – no Pinterest meant decisions were easy, you just went with what you liked at local stores. Cons – now that we’ve moved forward 20 years, styles have changed and there’s a tonne more to choose from, which makes staring at those walls you painted years ago that little bit harder.
This week I teamed up with Steve, along with his brothers and sisters, to surprise his parents with a room makeover. Specifically, a bedroom that was once home to their teenage boys but could use a little bit of love. Because it was a surprise, we had to work quickly, transforming the room in less than eight hours with a budget of around $500. Did we do it? Stick around to find out. (Spoiler alert: of course we did, we’re awesome).

First up: the design brief. I wanted to aim for cosy neutral, with accents of navy in the bedding. Steve’s parents have some great furniture in the room to work with; the wrought iron bed from Empire Beds Australia is what dreams are made of (pun intended) and the heavy timber bedside and mirror make such a great statement that the rest of the room needed to fit around them. I knew the room had a timber beam in the ceiling that had been painted black, so my mind was whirring with ideas. To tie the room together I REALLY wanted to bring that beam back to natural timber. Add in some curtains and some styling pieces and the mock-up was looking good!

First up: That ceiling beam. or as Steve and his brother would put it, that f*#&ing beam. My plan was to heat gun the paint off (which in my mind would glide off flawlessly) and then sand any remaining bits. Oh, the naivety! When I said the time allocation for the room was eight hours it was a miracle we finished it because the beam took THREE AND A HALF of those hours. The heat gun was slow and didn’t give a clean result, we then tried wire brush and electric sander and both were slow and patchy. The angle grinder did an alright job but it was still slow and awkward. Finally Steve pulled out the electric plane and removed the top layer of timber. It worked perfectly (even though it was loud and messy).

A quick vacuum and some Sugar Soap on the walls and we were ready to paint. Because the original wall colour was so bright and our planned colour was light we primed the walls with Taubmans Easy Coat 3 in 1 Primer. I chose to use Porter’s Paint in the colour ‘Half Woodsmoke‘ for the walls. Its a beautiful greige that adds a bit of personality without being offensive. A safe bet for a surprise room makeover.

After 2 coats and some drying time it was finally the fun part: Putting the room together. And here it is:

We began by hanging curtains on either side of the blackout blinds (the blinds block out the bright morning sun and heat so we used the curtains just to add some style). I chose a heavy black curtain rod that looks almost like pipes, it’s currently out of stock so I’ll link a similar one here and update it when it becomes available again.

This Olive Tree and basket from IKEA add a nice touch of greenery. While at IKEA we also grabbed the throw pillow cases and throw rug. Who knew IKEA had such a great finds? The waffle Quilt Cover is a classic from Target and will never go out of style.


Lastly we added this rug from Kmart. An absolute steal at $45 for a 235cm x 160cm rug. Stepping back the room felt complete, with a couple of blank spaces left for Steve’s parents to add some personal touches.

So how’d we do? Did we achieve a cosy, calm space?
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