Small bedroom in London
Emma, 27, post-graduate student, London. This is the bedroom I share with my boyfriend in a 1 bedroom flat. The bedroom and kitchen are claustrophobically small, but are made up for an unusually generous living room for London. I've tried to make the bedroom feel tranquil with the limited amount you can do in there (and my very limited budget). This is the first time I've had a bedroom which hasn't had to double up as anything else. It's quite relaxing really. I'm not sure you actually could physically fit anything else in here anyway. The bed and drawers came with the place and they don't fit anywhere but where they were when we moved in.
The plaster on the walls seems to be made of ground up diamonds, and putting up the curtain track and mirror was such a pain that I don't feel like putting up any picture frames. I think too many pictures in here would look cluttered and claustrophobic anyway. When the living room's done, I'll show it on here along with the bizarre kitchen that looks like a flood-lit 60s cave.
What you see when you look in the room: the wardrobe (with mysteriously huge cupboard above that swallows suitcase after suitcase).
Clothes inside. My boyfriend's above. Mine below.
View from the door. My nan made the bedspread, it's too small for this bed, but it's my favourite so I keep using it. There's a lot of fuschia/purple in the room. Both of us like those colours.
Moominmama and bolster cushion on the bed.
Close up of the patchwork quilt. Despite the fact my nan was a dressmaker I don't have that much stuff made by her due to her questionable design sense.
Curtains. They bunch a bit because they were originally for a much bigger window, but they're such a huge improvement on the dreary grey blind that came with the place.
Garland hung up over the bed.
The window. The building is from the 1920s. I think originally all the glass was textured for privacy, but has been replaced with plain over the years as the panes broke.
The shelves, chest of drawers and bed were here already when we moved in. I got the lamp really cheap because it had a european electrical plug on by mistake. A simple adaptor fixed that.
Oliver Postgate audio book I've been listening to. Kermit alarm clock. Assorted library books. The carousel box was from Christmas. It had bath stuff in. The box was much better than the stuff in it.
Magazines on the first shelf. A mix of old issues of Careless Talk Costs Lives, Sight & Sound, Oh Comely and Burda sewing magazines.
Photography stuff. That Chinon lens is terrible, I need to replace it.
Pirate hot water bottle. Arr.
Fiction books. Most of the non-fiction ones are in the living room.
Back of the door. That's my 70s dressing gown. I think they were trying to make it look japanese, but they failed. It's got white peacocks glaring at each other surrounded by cherry blossom coloured in the wrong colours and is made of really staticky nylon. It really reminds me of my grandparents' sofa more than anything else, in orange instead of blue.
My uni stuff dumped on the floor.
Mirror on the wall by the window. It came from the kid's department at Habitat and was apparently designed by Miss Piggy. It's a little too flattering, especially compared with the bathroom mirror.
Here's the floor plan to help you figure out where things are.