I was recently asked by a friend to give some advice on decorating her little girl’s bedroom. I was initially flattered as I dearly enjoy redecorating but I’m no interior designer. However having quickly agreed I almost immediate regretted it when she said…’Brilliant! I know you’re so good at getting bargains, I can’t wait to see what you find’.

Hmm… so now I had to help on design while keeping to a stringent budget as well. This favour suddenly felt distinctly like a job (albeit unpaid). Plus my friend doesn’t live near me, so I’m giving this ‘advice’ from afar.

Here was my brief

A midsleeper bed with a tent underneath.

A wardrobe with drawers (can’t be too expensive).

Fun chair for reading.

Bookcase.

Rug.

Bed

Doesn’t sound too bad, but wait a minute what the heck is a midsleeper bed? I had immediate visions of some kind of snooze pod made of railway sleepers, but a tent as well? A midsleeper is basically a bed that looks to all intends and purposes like a bunk bed but instead of a second mattress at the bottom there’s usually a desk or play area.

I managed to find a Steens wooden midsleeper bed complete with tent at Clever Clicker. I believe this is also a fairly decent price for such a thing.

Wardrobe

The wardrobe I found significantly harder to source, either designs we liked were too high in price or the price was right and the build quality was low. In the end I found a really nice 1920s wardrobe on eBay which my friend collected and plans to paint. Obviously more work but the entire thing cost around £100 and they’ve ended up with a really solid durable piece of furniture. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture to show you at the moment as the room isn’t finished.

Chair

I found a bread chair! Ha ha now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write. This little chair looked so wonderful and whimsical, in fact I rather fancy one myself. It has to be shipped from Japan but I think it’s worth it.

Bookcase

We settled on this Mia Dolls house bookcase from Argos. Unfortunately it’s only made from chipboard although it does look very sweet. It was bought at a special offer price and I have to admit that the full price does seem rather steep for what it is.

Rug

Good old Ikea to the rescue with this fabulous Rummet rug. Wonderfully girly and reasonably priced too.

In conclusion I’m not so sure I’d recommend helping a friend to decorate, it turns out to be harder than you might think 😛