HOW tessa and ROBBIE did it

‘As soon as we moved in, we focused on doing up this room, so we’d have a retreat while decorating the rest of the house and Mya’s room. We started by sanding and polishing the lovely wooden floor over a couple of weekends and painting the built-in wardrobes off white. We chose a soft grey for three of the walls, to work with the apricotcoloured fireplace tiles. One wall was left bare for a statement wallpaper, which we found online for just £12 a roll. It seemed too good to be true, and it took three weeks to arrive from China, but it’s great! With wooden floors, I didn’t want a wood bed, too, so I found an upholstered one in a linen-look fabric to add texture. The project took three weeks and we did all the work ourselves. We love it in here now and I’m pleased that we’ve kept the original features.’

stripped FLOOR TESSA AND ROBBIE SIMPLY SANDED AND POLISHED IT BELOW ‘THE BUILT-IN WARDROBES WERE WELL CONSTRUCTED AND ROOMY, BUT THE DARK WOOD WAS OVERWHELMING, SO WE PAINTED THEM AND THE MANTELPIECE WHITE, WHICH MAKES THE FIREPLACE TILES STAND OUT...