Bedroom window problem...solved!

A while back (quite a while back now) I blogged about my window dressing trauma. I have a beautiful mini square window in my bedroom - one of two - that is just gorgeous, but was proving a bugger to dress, which meant this:

Well it seems I have a solution - and thank the god of Ikea for that! I had hunted high and low to find something simple, in keeping with the room and decor, and that actually fitted. I hadn't thought Ikea would provide the answer (silly really, as it usually does). And here is is...

Not amazing, just a simple roman blind which, if nothing else, can be a temporarary solution until I can afford to fit customised wooden shutters. Dream on...

I made this! Ornate notice board

I bought this large ornate picture frame before I bought my current flat. It fitted in with the decor of where I was then, but since I moved and decorated, and it suddenly looked all....wrong. So it lay under the bed, stored with other items I love too much to give to charity, awaiting for inspiration for me to transform it into something altogether different.

A while later I had an idea. I had some white paint left over from the kitchen make-over, and a few coats later....

And rather than using it as a picture frame, I thought it would make a nice notice board. So off to Ikea, and a Stanley knife and some glue later, I had a new notice board. I added these beauties I found in the haberdashery store - (another great find in Barnett Lawson)

Gorgeous, colourful birds with bendable wire legs for 'perching' on hats, costumes, or wherever you like - such as an ornate notice board....

Nice, no?

Ikeaaaaaah!

I have a love/hate relationship with Ikea. I often joke that my flat is 'the home that Ikea built', but with many first-time buyers, bargain hunters and people on a budget, it is always a great place to start; no doubting that.

When i first moved in to my flat, i had one of my best Ikea experiences; i had a decent budget and a list of things i needed that was as long as my arm. Unadulterated shopping frenzy commenced, and my flat was almost fully furnished withing 2 hours.

But then, there are the other, more banal and downright annoying Ikea 'experiences'. Like today. When you get up early and go 'to miss the crowds', only to realise that everyone else within a 50 mile radius was thinking the same thing. Then there's the kids - now I'm not anti kids (well, not entirely...just not in shops. Or any other enclosed spaces), but they are everywhere. EVERYWHERE. And there's the meanderers. Walking slowly...then stopping. Right in front of me and my trolley. Can't you see I'm in a hurry? I'm on a mission. Get. Out. Of. My. Way. And then there's the trauma of having spent what feels like hours deliberating over an item, writing it down with those little fiddly pencils, and walking around and around the never ending corridors of brown boxes...to find what you are after is out of stock.

Motherf***er!

Guess I'll be back next week, then.