LIVING ROOM BUDGET MAKEOVER REVEAL

Now my whole house has had a budget, bodge make over, 

I thought I'd show you some more of my bodge decorating before the real work starts.

I'd love my living room to be like the one below, I love this style, it's not too matchy and perfect,

but with a bigger bouffier sofa!

Click here  for a snoop/admire/buy of this £5million!!! gorgeous house.

But back to reality

I decorated my living room a while ago with as little cash as possible, so as not to take any away from the big proper jobs that need doing ... lighting, coving, skirting, TV, wooden flooring etc, etc and endless etc.

Here's a before shot, they are estate agents pictures from when I bought it,

I managed to completely forget to take any photos before I started.

 Not the biggest of living rooms, it's got a big kitchen and a smaller living room and I like it like that, a cosy living room and a big sociable kitchen.

And here it is after a bodge job.

from a different angle

and how it looks now

I think it cost about £50 but I didn't keep an exact tali, the most expensive thing was the wooden slatted blind to replace the net curtain which cost about £30 from Argos, really splashed out there, eschewing the even less, £12 fake wooden ones which look sod all like wood but exactly like a brown version of old metal louvre blinds beloved by nosy neighbours, permanent dent in the centre from being pressed down for a better view, glasses glinting behind.

The fire place wall is a mix up of various paints for an exact replica of Farrow and Balls plummet.

And the fireplace was painted with left over masonry paint.

The rest of the walls are painted with a £14 tub of Wilko's paint.

The doors were painted with left over dark grey paint, I love how they turned out.

The furniture is my old upcycled stuff,
the big sofa is actually a second hand Tetrad one I picked up 10 years ago for £25!!

I recovered it a few years ago with a roll of Next upholstery fabric, £40 from eBay,

I really should have given the seat cushions a shake before photographing to re-plump the feathers.

A friend was re-decorating and gave me this lamp base she no longer wanted, I added this charity shop £1 lampshade and I love it.

The wooden box by the large sofa is a vintage, small travelling trunk which was already painted black and battered, just my style, and just £5 from my favourite charity furniture/junk shop.

Brass and glass terrarium house warming present from my sister, she'd put candles in it but the heat cracked one of the panes of glass so I put this £2 TK Maxx sale shelf faux cactus in it.

I replaced the wall shelves with some chunky floating shelves from my old house,

notice the top one supported by books,

that's was the work of a small climbing boy,

I can not work out how to stop it sloping down, I've turned it upside down everything,

it's going to have to stay like that until I call the experts in to do the flooring etc...

can you add this to your jobs list please, happy to pay just no one is going to come and just fix a sloping shelf.

The Poundland concrete Buddha head!

For a non Buddhist I have a ridiculous 3 Buddha heads, and one of them is 3ft tall!...
and one Buddha picture, but acceptable, as it was given to me by a Thai Buddhist?

Another snip of a bargain I found was this metal picture frame

£1 again from my favourite charity furniture/junk shop, brand new still with the TK Maxx £9.99 price tag on the back but...

God the smell!

That terrible musty thrift store smell,

I didn't notice until I put it on the shelf and then the smell was so strong it flooded the whole house,

I tried freezing it, covering it in carpet freshener, vinegar, none worked.

Then we hit a heatwave, so I left it outside in the sun for a couple of weeks and that removed the stink completely.

So that's my bodged living room,

next time you see it...

massive TV on opposite wall to the fireplace

(perfect view position for loungers on either sofa)

boxed in radiator

wooden flooring

high skirting boards

coving, ceiling rose, lighting, art, etc etc... hopefully...