Living and Dining Room

I have to say, the task of furnishing a three bedroom house on a small budget and using the existing items we already had in our own home, was a challenge. We sacrificed a lot of our own furniture to use at Sunnyhaven and our own home was pretty plain and sparse for a few weeks there!

When we first painted over the 'Aloha' a few years ago, it was with Resene's Quarter Spanish White. We really loved this colour at the time, however after two children (Rose and Harry) and then two lots of tenants, it had really had it's day and needed updating.

 

After a lot of discussion about paint and trying to find exactly the right colour, we ended up going with Resene's Merino, an old faithful colour which we had used at our previous house in Hillcrest. I like it because it is a true neutral and isn't too brown or too grey. It is clean and still has a nice warmth to it which I thought would work well with the Matai floors.

After a family effort with Mum and Dad coming up from Hamilton for the day, the roof gaps were filled and the ceiling painted, as well as all the walls and skirtings (in pure white). Taff then later painted the fireplace to match and we rehung the curtains and it was ready to go.

We hauled in our bargain buys and chose items that would make the room look bigger as it isn't a huge space. Literally everything in the room was from Trademe!

We bought the glass dining table which originally came with ugly black plastic chairs and swapped them for the white chairs from our current house. The lounge suite was another bargain and all the cushions were less than $20 for the lot.

The mirror was from our house but was orginally a mirror from someone's home gym and it had huge drill holes in the corners from where it was bolted to the wall. I took it to Winstone Glass and got them to chop the glass down as a cost of $10 and then had a custom frame made at Factory Frames.

The old TV, DVD player and small white entertainment unit were spares from home and we also used our coffee table from home, a designer bargain originally from Bo Concept. Finally, the EAT letters were purchased from a craft fair for $5 and painted red.

Although it was a lot of work in a short space of time, we enjoyed it and were happy with the way it all worked out in the end. When I formulate a scheme or idea in my head I am never sure if it will all come together or not in terms of colour, etc. Perhaps one day I will get more technical and create a mood board for such projects but there was no time on this occasion! :-)