How I created my own boutique changing room at home
We are very lucky to have a dressing room off our master bedroom. It’s a small narrow room on split levels with no natural light. (I’m really selling it to you aren’t I?)
The dressing room already had fitted wardrobes and a dressing table which were good quality, just a little drab for my liking. I could see the potential to give them a revamp and bring some fun and style into the room so the design was really based around working with what we had, injecting my personality into the space.
I wanted to create a dressing room that felt like a changing room in a glamorous clothing boutique. I wanted it to be fun and positive and put me in a good mood when I get ready on a morning or before a night out.
We already had plenty of storage in there but there was also an awkward wasted space over the steps, between the dressing table and the wardrobes. I wanted to build some extra storage there to make use of that space.
I wanted to have a seating area for a friend to sit and chat or give outfit advice whilst getting ready and I wanted to be able to hang clothes on the walls to put outfits together and plan what I’m going to wear.
I decided to decorate this room on a whim when the lockdown was announced after Christmas. I wanted a project to keep me going through lockdown and somewhere to escape to for a bit of headspace in between home schooling and work. There wasn’t much of a budget and I largely shopped our home, reused and upcycled items we already had although there are a few new items in there.
I started off by painting the walls, wardrobes, dressing table and woodwork. All of the paint came from my local decorating store. I used Johnstones matt emulsion on the walls and Bradite One Can on the wardrobes both colour-matched to Farrow and Ball “Middleton Pink”.
The handles on the wardrobes and drawers were removed and re-sprayed gold and the original dressing table top was removed and used, along with some leftover MDF from a previous project, to create some new shelves over the steps between the dressing table and wardrobes.
The new shelves and drawer fronts were decorated with Trio wallpaper in pink from Made and the wall at the end of the room was decorated with Bond Girls wallpaper in black and white.
A bought a second hand kitchen worktop from ebay which I cut to size and fitted, extending the dressing table all the way to the side of the wardrobes and over the new shelves. It was then wrapped with marble effect DC fix.
I bought some low cost wall shelves from Home Bargains and added wallpaper to them to give them a bit of wow factor before hanging them on the walls. I use them to display my collection of perfumes and vintage perfume bottles.
I added a bit of yellow paint to an old ikea dining chair and recovered the seat pad with some black and white “cow print” upholstery fabric, which was left over from another project, to create the dressing table chair.
An old cream bench that my friend had given to me was cleaned up and painted yellow. This was the first time I had tried painting upholstery but with a bit of internet research and advice from my friend Zoe from Morton Shaw interiors I found it was easy to do. I gave the bench a good clean first then I sprayed each section with water before adding the paint in thin layers. It was then left to thoroughly dry and given a good sanding between coats.
Then it was a case of faffing around with prints, faux plants (no natural light for real ones), wall hangings and cusions to dress the space. The prints are all fun and use positive typography to give a feel-good factor to getting ready.
We have had the full length mirror for about 10 years, it originally came from John Lewis and the oval mirror above the dressing table was a charity shop find.
The zebra wall hooks were made for me by my friend Zoe from Morton Shaw Interiors. They are made from an upcycled floorboard. I shopped my home and moved them in here from my hallway. I bought the Zebra rug from irugs in the sale.
Get The Look:
Bond Girls Wallpaper £45/roll, Wallpaper King
Zebra Rug £79 (in the sale), iRugs
Trio Wallpaper in pink £20/roll (in the sale), MADE
Second-Hand Kitchen Worktop £20, eBay
Marble effect DC Fix £12, Amazon
Moon Hanging Planter £14 and Jewellery Hanger £15, Sass and Belle
Prints £5-£40 each (several were won in givaways) from a number of small businesses: Dyl and the Gang, Modern Print Studio, Blossom and Bloom, Punkhaus, Staying in Studio, Iamfy, Signhive, and Worldly and Wild.
Wire “hello” wall sign £5, Rosewire Designs
Wall shelves £2.99 each, Home Bargains
Faux plants £20, B&M stores
Zebra wall hooks £60, Morton Shaw Interiors
Black and White Basket £14 (set of 3), Aldi
Cushion £7, Home Bargains
The Savvy Home Stylist 