Wires, wires everywhere.... pt 2

Last Sunday we showed you how we'd set up our bedside tables to contain USB sockets. Yesterday, after ordering some more components this week, we set about finishing off the project with wired in bedside lights.

The lamps we've got have their switch on the cable, so each night when you're half asleep and wanting to turn the light out you have to go scrabbling around down the side of the cabinet to find out where the switch has got to. Since we were trying to wire up our cupboards anyway we decided to fit permanent light switches to make things easier.

First we cut out the original switch so that we could replace it with the one we wanted, then created a hole in the top of the chest to take the wire from the lamp.

With another hole ready for the new switch, we fed both the cable from the lamp and the cable from the plug through this hole ready to solder to the new switch.

Then we soldered all the wires together and sealed the joints with heat shrink - this was going to be mains power and we didn't want to risk loose connections.

Finally we cut a hole in the back of the cabinet to feed both the plug from the lamp and the USB cable through. These are then plugged in under the bed and the bedside table has a nice, clean finish.

This has been a project that we've been talking about for a long time, and its so nice to see it all done. I may (or may not - just saying) have wandered into the bedroom merely to turn the light on and off yesterday.

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A Bedroom Makeover 4. Phew!

The before shot.

What was supposed to be a quick weekend project seems to have grown considerably and sucked up more time than we could have predicted. It started with just some new shelves and a bed and has become almost a complete change, short of painting the walls. The reality is that a large portion of the time hasn't actually been spent working on the room at all, but sorting, filing, organising and binning. We've done a fairly thorough go through of all storage in the upstairs of our house; that includes all those awkward boxes we've just moved from house to house, containing a most random selection of things.

However, it is now done. And boy does it feel good for it. Let me show you around.

Firstly we have a new bed frame so that our guests don't have to crawl around on the floor when they come to stay. We fitted it with bedside lights for easy bedtime reading.

Next up we've fitted a small shelf either side of the bed, carefully calibrated to fit a smart phone, a book and a cup of tea which should keep most guests happy. The shelves have been spray painted bright red and the covered with a waterproof gloss varnish so should be happy to take a hot mug directly.

We made a last minute decision to take out the carpet that was in here and replace it with a laminate floor. This was mostly fuelled by the idea that the pink would clash with the red shelves, and we wanted red shelves (and definitely not pink shelves). This stemmed from this trio of pictures that I made earlier in the year - the splash of red with the blue walls became the theme for the room.

Paper cut with red tissue paper backing.

Next, new shelves. In the end we went with the open shelves despite the bit of me that is concerned for the dust implications. We liked the idea of having a hodge-podge of boxes and jars, of being able to peruse our craft materials when looking for inspiration, of making the most of the colours and prettiness that comes with paints/buttons/wool/fabric etc. We're also hopefully that having it on display will inspire us to keep it tidier.

As part of these shelves we modified a wider shelf to fit the same mountings, treated it in the same way as the bedside tables and turned it into a little dressing table, complete with mirror and chair. A full length mirror has been mounted on the wall too.

Finally we've created a lampshade to finish the room off. This is quite momentous for us - we're not very good with lampshades and quite a few rooms in the house are missing one. It seems that making it ourselves might be the way forward (surprisingly it seemed to take less decision making). Being bad bloggers we haven't photographed the process, so here it is in a nutshell.

• We bought the metal rings that go in the top and bottom and a sheet of veneer 
• We stuck it all together with doublesided tape (recommended for fabric lampshades - not so sure about wood) and left it overnight held together by a lot of clothes pegs  
• We've reglued the side seam - the veneer isn't very keen on being a tube. 

Unfortunately, its still not quite holding. When we've got it sussed we'll let you know - for the moment we've left the pegs on so we could hang it up and see how it looks. It produces a lovely warm glow when the lights on and shows the grain of the wood beautifully. All the more reason to make this work!

And that's it. One bedroom. All that's left to do is label the boxes so that we can remember where we put everything. And the printers, the ones that started the whole process off? They're now making the most of the extra space created under the bed in the littlest bedroom.

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A Bedroom Makeover 2. Let there be light

What would a bedroom makeover be without a bed! For years our guests (and before them, us) have been sleeping on just a mattress, with the top of an old desk acting as a headboard. This has done the job admirably, and no-one has yet complained of a dodgy nights sleep, but time has come to spruce things up a bit.

We picked up a simple TARVA bed base to fit the current mattress (though I'm sure in years to come the mattress itself will get an upgrade) and then set about accessorizing it with a couple of JANSJO lamps. The idea was to mount the lights to the bed frame itself  (quite high on the sides to minimise the structural impact of the big holes). We also considered mounting them to the bedside tables but this would have left them a little low for sitting in bed reading.

These lamps arrive in two pieces - the flexible arm and a heavy base which meant we didn't need to modify them at all - we only want the flexible arm for this build. They would have been held to the base with two screws - perfect for refitting to our bedframe. After a careful bit of marking on the side struts of the bed frame Joe then set about the drilling. Firstly two pilot holes all the way through the frame. Then he used a flat drill bit to cut a recess for each hole from the back of the frame, and then finally widened the hole a little from the front. This left us with a narrow hole at the front that was a tight fit for the screw mountings, which then opened out at the back to a wider hole that allowed for the washers that were provided.

Adding a depth marker to the flat drill bit - this was one hole that didn't want to go all the way through!

Piloting first.

Drilling out the widest holes to allow for screw heads and washers.

We then assembled the bed frame before finally screwing the lights to the bed (with the help of some blutack to keep the screws the right way round in the depths of the holes we'd created).

What do you think?

p.s. we're not being paid by Ikea for all these furniture mentions - they're just a convenient fairly local store! 

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A Bedroom Makeover 1. Decision Making

On Sunday we spontaneously decided to rearrange what furniture we have in our guest bedroom. Its a simple room and this didn't take long, but it did start off the conversation. You know the one. Its starts with "maybe one day we should find a better place for these printers", follows up with "perhaps we should replace this desk with a more suitable table" and ends up with deciding to do a complete overhaul of what this room contains.

The facts. This room is 3.1m x 2.9m, and looses a small box section to the airing cupboard in the corner. It currently contains a kingsize mattress, a large desk, some printers and a couple of storage boxes. The desk never gets used as a desk. It is a hangover from our student days, whereas now we favour the kitchen table when needed. It does however provide a useful place for guests to put things - but takes up lots of space for this use.

The plan. Firstly, we wanted to get a bed frame for the mattress. This is long overdue and comes with also sorting bedside tables and lamps. Secondly we wanted to replace the desk with something more like a dressing table, sort out a nice mirror and make that a smaller but more usable space. Finally, we wanted to add some storage. This would ease the pressure on the box room which - while containing a bed - is mostly just stuff!

The big question has been what sort of storage as this will very much dictate the look and feel of the room. Our aim has been some sort of units with a gap in the middle that we could fill with the dressing table. We've been spending quite a bit of time browsing Ikea's website looking for ideas.


Idea 1: IVAR

We already have some of the IVAR system. With a bit of expansion we could have a narrow set of shelves up each side and a couple of shelves across the top. It would be quite open, and so we'd sort most of our things into boxes to keep things tidy. These boxes could be boring or a colourful and eclectic mix to make them a feature in their own right. Unfortunately these shelves don't fill the gap as nicely as some of the others, but would be quick and easy to put together.

IVAR

Idea 2: BORGSJO

This is simply two bookcases on each side, however the widths available mean that the space in the middle is rather squeezed. This has the advantage that we can use doors to hide all our stuff, though we've wondered whether solid doors would be more imposing on the room. Of course we could leave them without doors and use boxes as above.

BORGSJO

Idea 3: PAX

These are wardrobes and fall somewhere between ideas one and two in terms of size, layout and that doors vs boxes question.

PAX

Now all we need to do is make a decision...

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