makeover Archives - Lulastic and the Hippyshake

Recycled home- Big Bedroom Makeover

22 July, 2013

Ah, this great big room! It is so beautiful! Well, the 30% of the time that there aren’t piles of clothes and junk we are hiding from visitors all over the floor, it is so beautiful!

When doing this bedroom makeover I wanted to keep it pretty simple and calm, to create a peaceful sleeping environment. It is peaceful, the 30% of the time we are asleep in there, the times we are not diving in and out of the curtains playing hide and seek or raccously bouncing on the bed. (I say “we” out of solidarity for one of my kids.)

Come on in…

Some of my favourite creations are in this room. This art I did in an old window frame for Tim’s birthday of a native New Zealand bird, the Tui.

And this suitcase shelf

and book- shelf.

There is a huge framed print we hung after finding it in Oxfam.

Both the curtains and the bed came from a house clearance. It is our family bed and we love its gargantuan size to fit us all in. We got the headboard from Gumtree, it is equally huge and Tim had to wrangle it home on THREE different buses. The things we do for a bargain, eh? I flung some vintage fabric over it and made some bunting by painting letters onto the pages of an old book.

We found all these cupboards and drawers in one junk shop after months of searching for the perfect ones to fit in those spaces. We were SO stoked with them all!

We are leaving all of this furniture for the people moving into our home. I’m going to miss it badly, especially our giant bed.

I wanted to squeeze this post in before we move out, so I can look back and nostalgically reflect on how we transformed our whole house through 100% secondhand shenanigans.

So, future-Lucy, these pictures look nice, yeah? But remember it DID NOT look this nice for 70% of the time, okay? This room was basically rubbish nearly always. Stop crying.

PS What a bummer it’d be if you missed a post of mine, eh? Follow through Facebook or Bloglovin or even just enter your email to get them pinged into your inbox. I won’t be spamalot, promise!

Our recycled home, Thrifty

Recycled Home: Thrifty Spare Room Makeover

11 July, 2013

We have just 2 weeks left before we leave this little house of ours. Before we go I want to blog a few of the last thrifty makeovers we have done. We didn’t really have any budget for proper overhauls but I HAD to find a way to make each room intriguing and quirky. Enter the whole thrifty universe of second hand – it is amazing what you can do with a few Saturdays spent charity shopping and car booting!

For me, it is all about first making a canvas by painting the walls plain and then creating little tableaus with objects you have found. I do sometimes get a bit distracted picking up tins and vases up and shifting them by centimetres or from room to room, especially if someone is coming to stay.

Our other spare room has mostly had lodgers in it while this box room has been for short visits from people. We’ve had some lovely guests stay – friends from New Zealand, Canada and the US, people that we’d stay up late talking with, who would inspire us with their creative, soulful living. A couple of friends stayed with us for a few months in there before they headed off to sail the sevens seas for a year. Pip was in a band and would fill the house with her beautiful ukelele melodies.

I made this old desk we found a little bit more interesting by painting lines on it with homemade chalkboard paint. The vintage Singer sewing machine on the right came from Oxfam while the one next to it was found in the street. The case was locked and we had a grand old time breaking in to it – would there be an actual machine in it? Or maybe just a mummified Victorian corpse? Both these machines date from the 1800’s – it was well exciting discovering how old they were on this website.

Time gave me this old washing board for my birthday one year – I know! Ha, I’d have been gobsmacked if he didn’t do ALL the laundry. I don’t even know how to use the washing machine. The C came from our local bakers in the greatest street find EVER.

And this is just a little collection of gifts and jumble finds. (Most of which I don’t get to bring to New Zealand with us *cries into pillow singing Titanic to my vintage tins* Near… Far… Wherever you are…)

We haven’t done much to it but it has definitely been a transformation:

all for about twenty of your English pounds. It helps being okay with waiting for MONTHS to find the perfect wardrobe in a junk shop and feeling thrilled by coming across beds on the side of the road. (All our beds were streetfinds.) Secondhand life is the only life for us!

Finding things, Our recycled home, Thrifty

Recycled Home- Garden room make over

24 May, 2013

CRUMBS! Who has had quite enough of babies, eh?! Not of actual babies, Juno is continuing to rock our worlds (in a good way) but, blimey, has this blog gone all babyville or what? Here is a bit of reprieve- a little peep at a wee thrifty makeover we did in our spare room.

One of my favourite rooms in our house is one that began as the most unpromising. It overlooks our garden and we keep trying to pretentiously name it “The Garden room”, but it inevitably only ever gets named after the person who happens to sleep in it the most. At the moment it is called “Jojo’s room” after my sister who comes to stay a little bit.

Here is the BEFORE shot, in all it’s mauve and blue glory:

We carpeted and wallpapered and painted but I think it is the fun bits and bobs we have around it that make it such a bright room.

See this bed? It is made of beautiful native New Zealand wood and is soooo comfortable. We found it about 4 years ago when we were living in a little flat in Kings Cross. We had just decided that day that we would need to invest in a comfortable double bed. That VERY night we found this ON THE DOORSTEP awaiting the morning council pick up for landfill items. Couldn’t make it up, could you?!

I found the curtains in a car boot sale for £5, they aren’t luxury or anything but someone at that car boot sale obviously got the memo that we were creating a “Garden room.” *high fives stranger*

We found the mirror discarded in the street and the two vintage parasols came from car boot sales for a few quid. They only smell faintly of old man’s cigars, hehe. I love their shape and their colours and the delicate imagery on them.

I love these pictures, the image of a hot air balloon WELL fills me with joy! I got them from a charity shop for cheap, they were originally framed in pine which just made them look mega 1990’s Habitat. A lick of white just makes them a bit cooler, I reckon.

(In the first AFTER picture there is a string of stuffed fabric birds hanging out from one of the parasols- funnily enough I bought that from Habitat in the nineties… it is pulling off the nineties much better than pine does I think…)

This is a beautiful retro embroidery given to me by my sister who found it in one of her local charity shops. I’d go so far to say that retro embroidery is THE second hand item to snap up these days, it is so often bursting with colour and can fill a room with nostalgic happiness.

Including the cost of paint I’d say this room cost less than £40 to makeover, a thrifty nook indeed.

I am going to be revealing a few other rooms from our recycled home over the next few weeks. I’ve been meaning to do it for YONKS, so keep tuned!

Have a fab bank holiday weekend! We are off camping with family and friends in Gloster (yes, I’m aware of how you spell it and it’s ridiculous.) Here’s hoping it’s a bit dry sometimes. (Hey, look, this is the hope of a realist- it’s rained and poured every second of every bank holiday camping trip we’ve ever done, I think.) Have fun!

PS I’d hate for you to miss a post… enter your email to get them pinged into your inbox. I won’t be spamalot, promise!

Our recycled home

1950’s cabinet makeover – my new craft station

11 January, 2013

We are getting a reputation. For junk loving. (The good kind of junk… I mean, rubbish kind of junk… the kind of junk that ISN’T in your trunk… well, it may be from someone’s trunk, but not THAT kind of trunk… GAH)

Our friend’s landlord called us up a wee while ago and offered us an old 1950’s kitchen cabinet her had uncovered in one of his grottier houses. We were all “HECK YES!” and then he bought it over and it was covered in cat poo and vintage grease and smelt like it had been residing in hell itself.So it went straight out to the notorious alley in our backyard and has languished there for most of the winter.

Then, in the haze of fresh starts that is New Year’s Day we bought it in and attacked it* with cleaner and paint and now it is my new craft station.

*Tim mostly attacked and I instagrammed about it.

Can you forgive the grainy picture? I’m REALLY sorry, it is just so gloomy these day’s, eh.

It makes a perfect craft station- I did really love my old one, but it genuinely took up 1/3 of the room so it had to go.

There is plenty of storage space, shelves inside and a sturdy one that pulls out at the perfect height for my sewing machine.

I mixed the colour myself, aiming for a pale minty green with a hint of steel grey (!) I just used acrylic so that I had a wealth of colours to mix with, but I added a hint of tile grout. This turns the paint into the perfect texture, and it adheres to anything, no sanding needed, kind of like the Annie Sloane chalk paint that is taking the decorating world by storm but for a fraction of the price.

Hooray for a junky reputation!

Found anything cool lately? Have a look at all the other secondhand treasures bloggers have found over at Liz and Magpie Monday!
PS I’d hate for you to miss a post… enter your email to get them pinged into your inbox. I won’t be spamalot, promise!

DIY, Finding things, Thrifty

Extreme (budget) Makeover – the recycled lounge

3 November, 2011

“Apart from a handful of things given to us, our entire house is created from stuff we have found on the side of the road, or in charity shops” I explained to a friend. He scanned the lounge where we were sitting and said “Yup… I can beleive it”.

Bahaha.

So maybe the random array of furniture and funny little odds and ends (and the smell of cat wee) (just kidding) gives it away a little. But we love it, and that is what counts, eh?

Here are some horrendoes befores:

We had carpet put in on Monday, and Tim scored some amazing bits of furniture from a skip the day after which just completed it all for us. So here is the Big Reveal of the lounge, a year after we began!

The big soldier was £5 from Oxfam in Streatham (I have raved about this shop before. It is amazing!)

The little soldiers were £5 from the Fara kids shop in Pimlico

The curtains were £70 from the Mind shop in East Dulwich. Yep. 7 0. But they are lovely and thick and long and we had been searching for some time. Plus, it all goes to charity innit.

Then we have a big deep drawer next to the sofa which is great for holding all of Ramona’s toys. We found it round the corner, minus the desk!

This sofa is also from Streatham Oxfam, it was £35 and is so huge it is possible to sleep on it. Love. The cushions are from various charity shops, or made for us by our lovely friend.

Here is the other end of the lounge, and apologies for the even worse photos these puppies will make you feel dizzy. It is so dark down there and my camera hates on it.

This sofa/bench and the bureau were the bits Tim found in the skip. The school bench was £8 from a junk shop in Peckham. The old school pull along duck was £1 from a little school car boot (those are the BEST for kids stuff, unbelieveably cheap.)

This white book case was once pine and in the bin of a neighbours house, we pulled it out and painted it white. It’s not flash but it does a job! One of these sewing machines was found on the street, the other given to me for my birthday, but originated from Oxfam in West Wickham. The abacus was 50p from a charity shop – Ramona loves it! And the various frames were picked up from charity shops.

The desk lamp was £1 from another school car boot. I love finding glass things and putting stuff in them- jars full of pegs or scrabble letters.

So there it is, the recycled lounge- a mixture of charity shopping obsession and pure – finding – things – on – the- street- luck.

DIY, Finding things

Extreme (more cosmetic, really) Makeover: Bathroom

6 August, 2010

On our return from the camp at the weekend I persuaded my ever loving husband that we should makeover the bathroom- “It will just take a couple of hours, it’s all just aesthetic stuff: it will be an easy win.” Oh, how wrong was I. It was painful. Not so much for me, I got to just make up crafty things. But Tim got stuck with laying the stick-on tiles that, erm, didn’t stick.

So, several arduous evenings later we have almost finished. I wanted to share it so that it gives the impression that we are doing more than ignoring our unpacked boxes and ripping the odd bit of paper off the walls when we happen to be passing. Hehe.

What we used:
24 slate coloured stick on tiles from B and Q- £24
Fluro orange spray paint- £5
A utensil to scrape off ceramic animals
Some old containers and crockery
A vegetable rack

I wanted to go for an “industrial meets natural” feel, metal and orange with a dash of woven fibres to add a bit of a homely feel. I love it. Tim thinks it is a bit weird. What do you think?

BEFORE:

Meet the duck. There were ducks, dolphins and shells glued on all over the place. Alas, they didn’t fit the new theme. They will be missed.

The floor was just really quite speckled blue and minging. It had to go too.

It is really quite small, so nice looking storage of things was proving to be a challenge.
GETTING MY THRIFTY CRAFT ON:

This is me in the back garden painting and spray painting random objects haphazardly. It was a lot of fun. *Dances naked in garden high on fumes*

AFTER:

To sort out the storage challenge I spray painted some old biscuit tins. They house the million pieces of rubbish bathrooms (well, all our rooms) gather- old sun tan lotion, vitamins, more vitamins and more sun tan lotion… and a gazillion cotton buds. (Everyone loves a good old ear poking eh.)

These beauty little safe boxes have been sitting in my stock room at work, I couldn’t handle them sitting in a dark musty corner un beloved, so gave a little extra into the petty cash for them. Definitely my favourite bit of the bathroom, and practial too, storing even more extras like my husbands shaving paraphanalia.

I spray painted some orange dots (I fashioned a stencil out of the front page a swanky RSA bookletI got in a charity shop for 20p.) We pulled about 8 of these white tea pots from a bin last year- no lids, so not good pourers but perfect tooth brush holders amongst other things!

These frames once held those bright fake gerbera flowers -know the ones? Now they hold plastic Maori tikis, shells and string, in colours that are very on-brand for our new bathroom, courtesy of that lovely spray paint once again!

That is my quick and thrifty bathroom make over – what do you reckon?