#benuta

This resulted in a night spent sleeping in the living room, because the smell of the paint was really strong in the bedroom, so I was glad when the fumes had subsided the following day. When the paint was dry we started to hang the wallpaper, which was easier than I had ever imagined, as it was a paste-the-wall paper. I picked a ‘Doodle’ design from Graham & Brown, which I ordered from the Debenhams home range. It turns out that I actually over-ordered the number of rolls; I’d made sure to get enough rolls to wallpaper the space but didn’t realise that the pattern repeat would be so regular, so I there wasn’t much wastage at all. The pattern looks really busy but it actually has a very regular staggered repeat so when we were matching up one length to the next, we were only loosing about 4 inches at a time, rather than the 20 inches or so that I’d imagined. Needless to say I was rather impressed by this – less wastage always make thrifty ol’ me happy! Pasting the wall is so much more simple than pasting the paper; it seemed much less messy and we only needed about a quarter of a sachet of wallpaper paste to complete the whole room. We pasted it on with a normal paint brush, so could be precise about getting it into all the edges and around the woodwork. I didn’t trust myself to do any cutting, so hubby measured up and snipped the wallpaper to the right length, white I eased out the air bubbles beneath the hung wallpaper with a damp sponge. Teamwork! When we finished putting up the paper (in considerably less time than any other wallpapering project I’ve done!) we allowed it to dry overnight before adding a dado rail. We bought a pre-primed dado rail from B&Q, which cost around £13 for the whole room and again my husband was responsible for cutting it to the right length because my measurements tend to be rather approximate rather than accurate… We decided not to screw the dado rail in place and instead used an Evo-stick Gripfill adhesive to glue the rail in place. We squished it onto the wall until some of the adhesive squeezed out of the top of the rail, which I wiped away with a damp sponge. After allowing it to dry I place, I whizzed over the top of it with another coast of white paint to finish it off. After living with an empty hallway for a few days while we were decorating we realised that we didn’t want to fill it up again with lots of pictures, cupboards and rails so we’ve moved the key box into another room and have relegated our stash of coats to the bedroom. Instead of messy coat hooks, we wanted to have a sleek solution that would be a design feature (as well as somewhere for guests to hang their coats) rather than a necessity. I’ve had my eye on a specific coat rack for a while now; based on an original by mid-century designer Charles Eames, this walnut coat hook is ideal for the space. It matches the original wooden doors of our 60s home perfectly and I love the space-age style that was so popular in MCM design. I got the coat hooks from designer reproductions specialist Vita Interiors – the same retailer where I found my George Nelson Starburst wall clock that I wrote about last month. I love the over-size design and the fact that it’s pretty enough just to enjoy looking at without using it for coats. Of course, I won’t begrudge my visitors hanging up their hats there, in fact, I think I’ll feel rather proud!

I reused my old hallway mirror by giving it a good clean and rehanging in a better position where the light comes in through the door. I found out that I couldn’t go without a mirror in the hallway because I went to look into it about 5 times over the course of the three days we spent decorating and ended up staring at a blank wall (its funny how habits are so ingrained in your mind isn’t it?), so I obviously need it! Actually, the black edges and gothic style look in-keeping with the doodle wallpaper and almost looks like it’s been picked out especially for the room.

Finally, we put down a new rug in the hallway to freshen up the floor. We are considering taking out the carpet altogether and just having the tiled floor beneath the runner, but I wanted to live with the rug for a while before committing to tearing up the carpet! I love the chevron design of the rug, and the black and white looks great with the doodle wallpaper.

I got the rug from the same store that I found my kitchen rug, as I know that the range at Benuta is hard wearing and great quality. My kitchen rug still hasn’t been ruined in spite of all the comings-and-goings from the garden in wet weather so I knew that I could rely on this runner to survive everything that happens in my hallway. Well, at least the cats approve – I’m sure Cookie things she’s camouflaged against the monochrome now!

What do you think of my new hallway design? I’m pleased with how much brighter the room appears to be now that the walls are white, and I’m delighted with the wallpaper – it’s not overpowering at all! Let me know what you think by leaving me a comment below or tweeting me @Cassiefairy.

Projects-wise, this month I’ve been tackling the problem of the caravan floor. It’s perfectly usable but, as you can see from these photos, after a couple of years of sitting in the garden with the sun streaming in, the carpet has faded. I didn’t really notice it until I moved my bookshelf to make way for a new sideboard that hubby and I had cobbled-together out of two TV cabinets (I shared some photos of the new caravan ‘sideboard’ over the summer). At that point, I realised just how pink the carpet once was, and how very pale it has become, so I started looking around for a rug to funk up my floor. When I was shopping for my tiny kitchen makeover I discovered Benuta and it was there that I found a brightly coloured rug that would be ideal for the caravan. The smallest Pixel Swing multicolour rug was ideal size for the caravan floor and the thrifty price tag made me happy too! When I rolled it out on the caravan floor, I knew that I’d made the right choice; the rainbow of colours made the whole space feel brighter and I love the squares of patterns, which reflect the DIY patchwork wallpaper effect on the walls.  Oh, and finally, flowers always make me smile. This gorgeous autumn bouquet was sent by flower delivery company Blossoming Gifts and I adore the combination of bright colours – again, this puts me in mind of my new rug and looks great in the pineapple vase I picked up in the Store21 sale over the summer. They sent the flowers by post yet they arrived in perfect condition and the yellow lilies haven’t even bloomed yet so I’ve got that to look forward to! Even though flowers are a bit of a luxury, there are plenty of bargain bouquets available from this website and they offer 33% off (excluding flowers by post) using code BGIFTS33. Getting a bouquet of flowers always puts a smile on my face and I grin at them whenever they catch my eye, plus the scent makes the whole room smell gorgeous. To celebrate World Smile Day, Primula Cheese are working with Make-A-Wish UK to raise funds to help grant magical wishes to seriously ill children. Join in by tweeting photos of something that makes you happy with the tag #spreadasmile and @Primula_Cheese @MakeAWishUK. Throughout October and November, they will be donating 20% of the profits from their special ‘Just Say Cheese’ tubes to Make-A-Wish UK so I’ll definitely be adding a tube to my shopping basket this weekend!