My childhood bedroom went through many different looks. When we first moved in back in 1987 when I was 6 years old, I was instantly drawn to one room. The door was covered with stickers and one wall had a mural of the seven dwarfs on it. The previous owners had two sons and it had been the bedroom of the youngest son. It became mine and I kept the dwarfs for quite some time until I got a bit older and decided I wasn’t into them anymore.
Me and my dwarfs… (it was a bunk bed not a very tiny room!)
So the dwarves were painted over with a pale pink. I had Bunnykins pictures put up and the odd poster of fluffy kittens.
A bit like this Bunnykins although mine were just the oval picture. (From Ebay.com)
As I got older the Bunnykins pictures and kitten posters went and were replaced by posters out of Smash Hits and Lookin magazines. Posters of people like Keanu Reeves and Gary Barlow (yep.) When I was about 12 or 13 I begged to have my room redecorated. I wasn’t a pink sort of girl anymore. So my Mum wallpapered my room – the two end walls were done with a dark blue paper with gold stars and the two long walls were done with a sort of mottled marbley yellow colour. She made me some floor length dark blue curtains with stars on. My bunk beds (which by then had been separated so I had two beds in my room at either end) were made more grown up. My bed had a nice new bedspread with suns, moons and stars on and my spare bed had been turned into a sort of day bed/sofa. My Mum got these lovely soft squashy pillows and made covers with suns, moons and stars on them and used my spare duvets (for the other bed and the folding bed I had underneath it for sleepovers) as bolster cushions, making great cylindrical cushion covers that I could roll up my spare duvets and put in to make long bolster arms for my sofa bed. It was great.
It wasn’t until I got to about 17 that I wanted a new look to my room and Mum said she would buy me the paint if I did all the work, so we did a deal. I decided I wanted purple, indigo and silver… I got cans of silver spray paint and I sprayed my ceiling silver, painted the skirting boards and door frames silver, even the radiator. Then I stripped off all the wallpaper and painted the two end walls indigo and the long walls a lilac colour. It was fab. By then I had done away with my bunk beds and had inherited my brother’s double bed when he moved out. The squashy pillows had been re-covered by my Mum with purple and pink material. Although looking back I don’t think the new owners thanked me all that much to have to deal with my silver ceiling when we moved out back in 2001!
I kept the squashy cushions when I moved into my own place in 2001. I was 19 and I had a brand new empty house to fill. It is amazing when you move your things from a bedroom to then try to fill a house. I had my bed, bedside tables, a desk, tv stand and two sofas my parents gave me as they didn’t have room for them in the hotel they bought. I bought some things from Ikea, was given some kitchen things by my Mum, including the saucepans I grew up using. My Mum also let me have our old kitchen table and chairs.
I spent a couple of years living on my own in my little house. My boyfriend at the time turned out to be quite a nasty piece of work so we went our separate ways. In 2003 I decided to rent my house out and move up to my parents hotel and work for them. Lots of things went into the loft and some things came with me. I can’t remember whether the squashy cushions came with me or not. I spent a year up there in Scotland, during that time I met my ex who was working down on the Isle of Wight for his parents. We spent that year visiting each other back and forth before I moved down there for 6 months. My parents sold the hotel and moved to where they are now in Wales, running a B&B. My ex and I moved up to Wiltshire as he got a job in Oxfordshire and we rented somewhere for a sort time until we could move back into my house. We lived here together until 2009 when I decided I’d had enough and asked him to move out. Later that year I offered the use of my sofa bed to a very good friend to stay after splitting from his partner so he could be close to his son to put him to bed at night. We got married two years later.
A few years ago the squashy cushions ended up under the bed, they got all dusty and the covers were a bit manky. So they were taken off and the cushions put in the loft. Recently the chair we have at our desk has become super uncomfortable to sit at and it got me thinking about nice squashy cushions, so a week or so ago my husband got them down from the loft for me and I ummed and ahhed over fabrics to decide on what to use to make new covers from. I finally decided on two types. One cushion will be in one type and two will be in another. The material for the front of the two cushions is coming from Hong Kong so will be a while coming. However the material for front and back of the one cushion (and the back for the two) arrived yesterday so I quickly whipped up an envelope style cover for it.
Ta da! New look squashy cushion!
I’ve never made a cushion cover before. I won’t show you the back as it’s a right dogs dinner! I followed a tutorial I found and have since decided that a half inch hem was far too small. Plus my stitch length was stupidly small so it puckered the fabric a bit (as the fabric on the back is quite thin compared to the cotton / linen look fabric on the front.) Plus I ended up sewing one half of the back flaps on inside out (but thankfully that is the underflap so it’s covered up!) It was a bit baggy, so this morning I re-sewed the seam all the way around to make it a bit more snug. At least now I know how to make them better when I do the other two when that fabric arrives!
The other two may get used as floor cushions, we’ll see!
Nowadays our house is a proper home. When I look back to how it used to look when I first moved in, a lot has changed. Completely new furniture in practically every room apart from the kitchen. It has been redecorated and new flooring throughout. It is lived in, messy at times (well quite a lot), has various Lego structures left around the living room and usually has washing hanging up all over the place as we don’t have a garden to hang things out in! Not to mention a sewing machine usually on the kitchen table, felt scraps found on the floor, the odd bit of ribbon stuck somewhere. Oh and my rather awesome magnetic wall in my kitchen!
A view of the living room when I first moved in.
A different somewhat gloomy view. Behind the camera was the desk and the top of the stairs!
The living room these days!
One end of the kitchen back then – complete with mouse house on the worktop.
The kitchen more recently – although nowaways there is a big box at the side of the fridge with all my craft stuff in with a sewing machine on top!
The magenta wall of words! Nowadays the bottom half is filled with the alphabet, numbers, drawings and simple words to help my stepson with his reading!
My bedroom when I first moved in. My old bedroom curtains came with me that my Mum made and you can see the squashy cushions on the bed! (As well as my lovely dear departed cat Poppy!)
A slightly blurry mobile phone shot of the bedroom not long after my lovely Mum came and helped us do the wallpaper on the back wall!
And another blurry mobile phone shot of the rather lovely photo frame we have on the wall in the bedroom. My favourite picture in it is middle bottom – The Book of Toys with penguins all over it.
I won’t bore you with any more, certainly wont bore you with bathroom photos. Needless to say the house is much better these days. Also a lot better than when I lived with my ex, there were model airplanes dotted about the place and the odd motorbike engine on the kitchen table in those days. At least now it’s just nerf darts and Lego!
Fudge & Poppy 