Hannah’s House

My sister is a girl boss 🙂 a miss independent, always busy travelling the world with her work. A few years ago she took the big leap of buying her own place, somewhere to retreat and recharge when she’s home. The house was a perfectly formed set up with a cosy open plan living – dining room, however it needed a lot of tlc! So I was recruited to help turn this empty space into a home. We had a small budget and the brief was a light and airy cottage with a contemporary twist and feminine feel.

The open space is fairly compact, but it was possible to create a separate dining and living area using smaller scale furniture. Ikea is the obvious destination for budget friendly furniture and the Ingatorp dining table was a perfect fit. However even at £225 I believed we could get the look for less. We went along to a local second hand shop and bought this table for £20, sanded it down, gave it a few coats of Annie Sloan paint and buffed in a top coat of clear wax. The same look for less than £50. Adding four Ikea Ingolf chairs completes the look.

I looked everywhere for some reasonably priced blush pink seat cushions but in the end bought a table cloth from H&M which gave plenty of fabric and my mother sewed them up into these pretty tufted cushions complete with ribbon ties. The table runner was originally an Ikea table cloth that I cut and sewed and the left over fabric made a few extra cushion covers.

Although the room is fairly small it has a large window one end and big french doors the other and so the natural light streams in. I wanted to make a feature of this by hanging the curtains high, long, and layering them for textural interest. The double curtain pole and curtains are all Ikea, the lace Alvine Spets, and the white curtains Lenda. The excess fabric softens the all white walls and dressing both windows in this way achieves that light and airy feminine cottage feel.

A low hung pendant light helps to anchor the dining area, this one from Wayfair is more understated that a chandelier but still adds a little glamour and prevents things looking too rustic and more contemporary.

Over to the other side of the room…

The same scheme continues so everything flows cohesively, but a rug (Next) grounds the seating area making it a clearly defined space for a different purpose. The light fitting here is a variation of the dining area pendant, also from Wayfair.

We found this ornate mirror at Dunelm which throws more light around the room, and opting for a streamlined sofa that is raised up off the floor helps with the illusion of space.

A white glass top coffee table allows the light to be filtered through to the floor and doesn’t distract the eye from being drawn out to the window. Yes, we also managed to squeeze a piano in too!

Throw blankets, mix and match cushions (within the same colour palette), lamps and candles all add cosiness.

There was no fireplace or particular focal point to the seating area and so directly opposite the sofa we added a radiator cover and a gallery wall displaying a few of the many places Hannah has travelled. (Gallery wall post here). The radiator cover provides a ledge for candles to bring a warm glow in the evenings and a reupholstered vintage chair, extra rug for layering, and a knitted footstool close off the seating area for a cosy conversational set up.

What do you think? We love how it turned out!

Rebecca x