And so to bed...

One of life’s little joys is the first night sleeping in your own bed after a holiday. The familiar comfort of your very own mattress and your very own pillow. There’s nothing like your own bedroom, your private retreat at the end of the day, is there?

Well, at least I know there’s probably not many like my bedroom...

You’ll either love it or hate it, but this is my wacky bedroom wall mural. I painted this “feature wall” three years ago, when Little Flower was a few months old. Perhaps it was post-pregnancy hormones affecting my creativity, causing me to go a tad overboard with the crafty endeavours (I wasn’t yet embroidering or sewing, I only knew how to crochet back then).

But there is a story here that I want to share with you.

The master bedroom, when we moved in nearly 10 years ago, was a less-than-serene shade of dark yellow. The carpet was a thin, worn royal blue. Ugh. It remained this way for years, as we had other priorities in the house – the kitchen, the sitting room, Bunny’s bedroom...everything else took precedence over our room, which is silly, because this is where we are supposed to find solace, to relax and recharge our batteries.

Well, one day I was reading either House & Garden or Homes & Gardens, you know, one of those rather upscale decorating mags. I would buy them for inspiration around the house, then knock together something similar for a quarter of the price of the items on those posh pages. Flicking through the issue, I came across an amazing home featuring grand murals. The bedroom was a peaceful sage green, soft but not pastel, calming, a quiet, natural shade. The weeping willow-style branches, with their dainty aqua buds dotted here and there, were dramatic but yet graceful. I was entranced. I had to have this on my wall!

So I read the details closer, to find where I can get my hands on this wallpaper. I’ll splurge, I thought, and just buy enough to cover one wall, knowing it wouldn’t be cheap.

But this wallpaper wasn’t any old posh wallpaper. It was hand-embroidered silk wallpaper from China. And it as £284 per square meter.

Yup, that’s right. About £5,000 to cover that wall, I reckoned, after I got out the tape measure and did a few measurements.

The paint pots have been replaced with a much more tasteful brown linen cube stool...

So I taped the mag photo to the wall, grabbed a pencil and jumped on the bed, and I started drawing on the walls (these were the days before wall stickers were easy to find everywhere!). I figured I’d better do this now before Little Flower was old enough to see me and think it’s okay to doodle on walls anywhere in the house.

I sketched a few branches, then I bought one small tester pot of dark brown paint. What could go wrong? If we don’t like it, paint over it.

After matching the green and painting the walls, I drew the entire mural on the wall. I was nervous painting the first little branch in the corner, of course, but I kept going and loved it.

 

The nice thing with branches is you can be as wobbly as you like with painting, it doesn’t matter, because trees are knotty and bumpy and not at all straight.

I got out the old acrylics I used for the fairies in Bunny’s room and mixed some turquoise and some white to make the buds, just like in the magazine. I never, ever would have put turquoise, sage green and dark brown in a colour scheme, but oddly, I think it works!

 

I even went so far as to copy the wall lamps on either side of the bed with the duck-egg shades, and the large kingfisher-coloured cushion with the smaller duck-egg cushions on the bed. But of course for a fraction of the cost of the ones in the magazine (and now I would have bought fabric and sewn them myself!). Last year I found the brown and teal bedding in a catalogue, so now we have “summer bedding” and “winter bedding” – how very grown up, eh?

Of course, now that I’m into embroidery, I’m wondering how one learns to stitch wallpaper...

Chrissie x