Welcome to DIY Doctor's blog


Nov 18

As a house gets older, the décor of the building follows suit and the need to refresh your interior surroundings becomes quite pressing. This gets harder as you update each room, as most people cannot afford to do every room at once and at the end, there is always that one room you’ve been avoiding.

More and more people tend to go with modern angles when redecorating and look for something a little more contemporary. If that dreaded room in your house that you’ve left till last is somewhere like your bedroom, it can be tough to make the choices that will make it fit in with the rest of the house.

Design

The best route to take with any room when decorating is to not deviate too much from the rest of the house’s style. Take account of the styling cues you’ve utilised in other rooms such as the living room and dining room.

Think about colour schemes and how you want the room to feel as well. It can be easy to go down the contemporary route and create a less than homely environment through a poor choice of colour. Like the living room, neutral tones should be used, coupled with a select use of colour and patterns via the likes of bed sheets, curtains and cushions.

Furniture

The main idea behind having neutral colours on the walls is that your furniture should contrast to the décor of the room so that it sticks out and gives itself presence. The use of dark woods when choosing your furniture is a popular choice, as it draws the eye nicely just as furniture should and is a method that has the same purpose as having patterned curtains or a feature wall.

The style of furniture is a different matter, however, and furniture such as beds and chest of draws should be of a minimalistic style if you want to do contemporary properly; beds especially should be low to the ground and not have over-the-top head and footboards. Just ensure that all the woods match with each other.

There are several different ways to go about a modern bedroom, though, with the opportunity to use the likes of French furniture or mirrored furniture also there.

Flooring

This is another opportunity to use contrasting colours in the room, with warm wooden flooring often the most popular choice for a modern bedroom. Wooden flooring shouldn’t be the same shade as your furniture, but also shouldn’t standoff too much on its own; instead make it blend in with the rest of the colours in the room.

For a more homely feel, carpet can be used and is usually utilised in a different manner to wood flooring and can be neutral like the walls.

Sep 05

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen has long been a champion of rich colours in the home. Now a Littlewoods survey claims to show that if you paint your bedroom purple you are likely to be twice as …er… active there, than if you paint it neutral shades like beige and grey.

Llewelyn-Bowen said: “For years I have been telling British homeowners, a beige bedroom makes for a beige sex life…The sexiest combination would be purple walls, lilac silk sheets and a violet duvet cover.”

purple bedroom 582x447 Put some colour in your love life

Image from corearchitect.co.uk

If Purple isn’t your thing, then what about red? Think of the well-known paint brand advert with the young couple producing so many children they have to repaint their red bedroom white? Well the same survey backs up this scenario showing that red is the next most sexy colour.

So if you want to put a little colour into your love life, why not break open the luscious paint and go for a change of scene?

For help and advice on how to paint, and equipment to make the job easier, visit our project pages where you will find lots of painting subjects – from paint effects to types of roller.

Sep 02

We’ve found some great ideas on the web for upcycling an old ladder via scraphacker.com. They can be left to just lean against a wall, used as shelving or suspended from ceilings. Take a look and be inspired!

In the bedroom, you could transform a simple wooden ladder into a clothes rack and shelf just by using a couple of brackets and some paint:

Ladder Clothes Rack 300x285 When is a ladder not a ladder.......

Or turn a wooden ladder into a shoe rack!

ladder shoe rack1 When is a ladder not a ladder.......ladder shoe rack2 When is a ladder not a ladder.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can use a ladder as a towel rail in the bathroom or as a hanging rack in the kitchen. There are so many possiblities….

 
ladder pot rack When is a ladder not a ladder.......

Aug 26

If you are looking for inspiration for a child’s bedroom and want to do something a bit different, this may give you some inspiration…..how about a treehouse in the bedroom?

Childs bedroom treehouse Bedroom treehouse

This unique example from the blog ‘the slow life’ bu Juli, and it was designed and made by Juli and her daughter as her daughters first bed.

We think this is fantastic and as the article says, it’s not just kids that want to sleep in it!!

Feb 03

Natural floorboards shrink and expand with the seasons. This means the best time to fill the emerging floorboard gaps are when they are at their largest.

Through the past months central heating systems may have caused traditional floorboards to shrink opening up wide gaps. These gaps can let cold draughts intrude into rooms making them cold and uncomfortable as well as increasing heating bills.

Now, when the gaps are at their largest is the best time to fill them. DIY gap fillers like papier mache and glue are not able to withstand the movement of the wood and will eventually drop through the gaps. As DraughtEx is very flexible it will expand and contract within the floorboard gap leaving you with peace of mind for years to come.

The same flexible properties also allow an easy installation in a wide range of gaps. Old Victorian houses often have wooden floorboards with strongly varying gaps. Our three different versions of DraughtEx will allow you to cover a gap range of 1-11mm width. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to receive more information or visit our website www.draughtex.co.uk