Filed under: Home
The Homemade Home by Sania Pell, CICO Books, £16.99, hardback/Photography by Penny Winc
Fancy a little
home update for spring but not sure where to start?
This week we're asking how to best prepare for a successful (and stress-free) weekend of DIY. Whether it's inspiration on how to revive old furniture or advice on starting a new interior look, senior paint buyer Richard Johnson of
Homebase and stylist-author
Sania Pell share their DIY do's for the Easter weekend.
DECORATING - FIRST STEPS
You should always paint your ceiling first followed by walls and then your woodwork. By painting the skirting last it will enable you to create a much cleaner-looking finish. However if the room is being wallpapered it is standard practice to paint woodwork prior to hanging your new
wallpaper.
Filling the gaps
The best way to hide the holes in the paint is to fill the area with Polycell fine surface filler, allow it to dry and then sand it down. Once this is done repaint the area with the same paint if you have some left; if not, you may need to repaint the wall.
How to paint skirting boards
Use extra-wide masking tape. This has three benefits: any paint drips will be caught before they damage the carpet, the carpet pile will be pressed down, allowing paint to be applied further down the skirting board for a perfect finish, and when painting, there is less chance of your brush catching the carpet.
Revive old furniture and cupboard doors
Use a multi-surface primer and undercoat that can be brush-applied to these surfaces, which then allows you to apply a decorative coat on top, such as non-drip satin or eggshell paint. This is a great tip for refreshing and changing to a look that is unique to you, and also keeps to a budget.
FEELING INSPIRED?
Stylist, author and makeover magician Sania Pell is a woman with ideas by the paintload. The antithesis to high-end design magazines, Sania's DIY craft and customisation projects - as featured on her blog and book
The Homemade Home (£16.99, www.cicobooks.co.uk) - provide useful, quick and cool updates for transforming all corners in the home - and all on a next-to-nothing budget. With finances tight and DIY more popular than ever, it's time to turn your hands to creating what you need, rather than buying it. Step-by-step, Sania shows you how...
Decorated cupboard
This old cupboard (see above right) looked very tired when it was first given to me, but I transformed it using a few creative techniques. I wanted to give it a magical feel, and so the key element is the fairytale tree that looks like it's growing over the cupboard. It consists of a stenciled branch and leaves, with more leaves cut from wallpaper and from craft metal and then stuck on. A few mirror disks and two doorknobs covered in glitter complete the fantasy effect.
Your design does not have to stop at the furniture - it can extend onto the wall. Here the mirror disks that I used on the cupboard are also on the wall, but you could continue motifs cut from the wallpaper onto the wall.
The Homemade Home by Sania Pell
Pots and pebbles
An easy and chic way to update your plant pots is to paint them with blackboard paint. You can then write messages or play games such as Tic-Tac-Toe on the sides with chalk - the pots become a sketchbook that the rain cleans for you to begin afresh.
You could also paint some of the pots to contrast with the blackboard paint - perhaps a bright shade or a sophisticated stone shade, which looks great with pebbles placed on top of the soil. If you come across any stones with holes in them, you could string them together, as I did here.
Clean the outside of the pots and the inside rims thoroughly. Give the paint a really good stir, as it can go a little patchy if you don't. Apply two or three coats of paint to the outside and the inside rim, allowing it to dry between coats. Put some pebbles in the pots, add some soil, and then pot your plants. Decorate with pebbles or thick string.
Quirky chair
The inspiration behind revamping this old chair (see above left) came from a roll of wallpaper patterned with exotic birds, which a friend had leftover from decorating her bedroom. It was perfect for creating a statement chair. I used one of the bird motifs on the top rail of the chair back (with feathers stuck on to make it even more fun) and covered the other back rail with the wallpaper.
I also covered the seat with wallpaper, positioning it so there was another bird in the center (without extra feathers!). Before adding the motifs I painted the chair in bright, contrasting colors, and in addition I taped strips of patterned fabric around parts of the legs. You can get a similar effect by simply wrapping strips of fabric around the legs and tying knots to secure. With a chair like this, the more whimsical the decoration, the better.
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