What's on my desk?

I love having my own desk. It's a space that's mine. I can be as messy or as clean as I like. Although, if another person asks if I got a pink one so my boyfriend wouldn't use it I shall despair at society's ideas of colour, and point out I wanted the green one, but IKEA didn't deliver it. Anyway, rant aside. I love my desk. It's the IKEA Micke desk, I picked it because I can add extensions and units to it as and when I want to. It's a good size, easily fitting my laptop and bits of paper on. The fact that it has the splashes of pink on means that I don't have to worry about painting it, and breaks up the white.

Painting IKEA Furniture: Melamine

Leading on from the post about painting wood, today I'm talking about the trickier substance of melamine. Not being a fan of the pure white look of it, we decided to add even more colour to our rooms. The shiny surface of melamine can make it difficult to paint because the paint doesn't want to stick. Here is how we managed it. I didn't take that many photos as we went along this time so no fancy slideshow!

Cushion Wishlist

This might seem a weird thing to have wishlist for, but hear me out. Cushions are the easiest way to brighten up any room, and are interchangeable for the different seasons. We have a few at the moment that I made for us, as I think that cushions can be a little overpriced. So this is part wishlist and part inspiration for my next DIY.

Painting IKEA Furniture: Wood

IKEA furniture comes with a certain 'look' and for some people, that's the look they want and that's fine. But we felt that being in a rented flat with plain walls and little manoeuvre in terms of decorating that we might has well do what we could to add some colour into the rooms.

Before...

The steps to take are fairly simple, and don't actually differ much between various surfaces, but I will be covering melamine in a later post. Overall, this didn't cost us much at all to do.

No Storage? No Problem: What's in my bathroom?

This is the first of a series of little tours around different areas of our flat. Starting in the bathroom. Originally I was going to make this a video, but it was so cringe worthy and awkward I figured a post would do.

Our bathroom has no storage. At all. So getting something to put everything in was top priority after we'd moved in. It took us ages to find the perfect thing though, eventually we settled on this from Argos. It's definitely more substance over style, but it more than adequately serves its purpose. Four huge drawers ready to be filled with mostly my stuff as my boyfriend's idea of a skincare routine is soap and Vaseline body moisturiser.

Here are some photos of it in situ, the others are all taken in the sitting room as the light is better in there.

Moving Into Your First Flat

This isn't technically the first time I have lived away from home. While a student I spent two years in halls of residences and a year living with friends in a house. But living away from Mum and Dad when not a student is different.

First of all you have way more freedom about your space. We were never allowed to make holes in the walls in my student days, but we are here. Plus, unless you live in a house share, the whole space is yours to do with as you wish.

I'm back!

Hello and thank you for your patience while I was away moving things in and out of boxes and up and down stairs. I think for the sake of my parents' backs I am only going to live on the ground floor after this. Or hire professionals for the heavy lifting.