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Transforming a Small House into a Palace with Vintage Linens

One of the Maud's daughters, Olivia has just bought a very small house to live in. However it needs a lot of work to transform it into a palace.
This Diary will follow the re-design of a 1980's property in true Beyond France style using vintage inspiration with a modern twist!!!

Week 1- Spring cleaning!

Day 1- Got the keys. Bought rubber gloves and bin bags. Cleared 30 bags of rubbish out of the house and garden, including 2 dead frogs.
1 live frog hopped out of the front door!
Gutted the bathroom and ripped up the kitchen floor.
This was certainly Spring cleaning!

Week 2 - Creating Space

The 1 room downstairs is 20m2, it is the kitchen, dining room and living room.
The the original mint and lemon coloured kitchen from 1980's was removed
To give a sense of space we chose light coloured floor tiles. The area behind the strairs will be turned into a larder with narrow shelves.

Week 3- Small but Cute Kitchen

We decided to keep the kitchen compact and make it even cuter so there was more room for a sofa and dining room table. We used wall units for the central work area because they are narrow at only 350mm wide.
Our Carpenter set to work building the cupboards, making sure they were strong enough to support granite work tops!
With our love of all things old and vintage, a belfast sink was the obvious choice.
Granite has been templated so busy with the painting in preparation for its arrival next week!

Week 4- Sparkling, Glittering Granite

The granite was fitted and it has transformed the small area into a kitchen! The finishing touches will be the appliances and the tiles around the cooker and sink area.

The vintage linens have been selected from the Beyond France collection to make into curtains and blinds. It was difficult to choose from the lovely natural linen sacks and mattress covers with stripes or the bright dyed polka dot linens but wait and see for the results!

Week 5 and 6 Painting, Painting, Painting

The last couple of weeks have involved painting and lots of it! Although it is a small house, the walls and ceilings needed to be prepared and painted with undercoat and top coat to remove all signs of mint green.

Once we stood back and admired the paintwork the stairs were drawn to attention. In varnished wood they certainly didnt fit with the creams, whites and glittering granite!
What to do?! Carpet would introduce another colour and texture into the room but bare wood is noisy!!

So it was decided that the stairs should be sanded down, painted a similar colour to the walls and finished with a stair runner.
Paint brushes back out and a trip to Hungary to source some suitable linen then!!!

Sacking as Stair Runner

Keeping within the colour schemes of naturals, white and black, this old Romanian sacking was selected to use as an alternative to stair carpet!

It was fitted by a carpet fitter with underlay and gripper boards.

For a standard set of stairs 6 metres is required.
We would recommend that it should be fitted with stair rods for an even more secure and stylish finish.
If you are interested in using vintage sacking as stair runner please See Sacking available

Curtains on decorating

Vintage Linens into Curtains
After many hours painting the stairs and touching up walls.
Finally the unpacking begun, and the curtains went up in the sittingroom/dining area.
The distressed wood curtain poles are from a local UK supplier and are mixed with old french curtain rings
The Beyond France linen is so versatile, these curtains are made from Petal Pink Town Polka Dot tablecloth linen, what a great decorating idea for window coverings! Tablecloths for curtains

The wonderful benefit of the Beyond France linens in prints is that they can be mixed and matched with the natural striped kitchen and table linens for stunning and individual results.
The beautiful chair covers have been made using striped handwoven linen on the roll. Linen for seat covers

Blinding Petal Pink!

Great decorating ideas for Window coverings: Blinds

To maximise on the wall space, blinds were chosen for the two windows in the bedroom. A double and single window were covered using just one Petal Pink Village Procession Tablecloth/Sheet!
The blinds were lined with a Plain Petal Pink Tablecloth/Sheet, so even when you look at the windows from outside the blinds are clearly pink!
Blinds are great for small window coverings, they can even go inside the window frame to maximise on wall space.
Choose a vintage tablecloth/sheet for a blind

And so to bed...

To fit with the existing colour scheme Maud has been looking out for vintage linens in white and pink.
This Cart Cover is a soft white with faded pink stripes, Olivia decided to fold it double and lay it across the bed with the stripes running vertically, so it did not fall on the floor and take up valuable floor space! In a larger room it could be laid horizontally sweeping down each side of the bed.
The natural Ballerina cushions are great because they fit with most colour schemes and can be mixed and matched with more detailed delicate cushions like the embroidered one here.

Olivia was selecting pieces of embroidery to be transformed into cushions when Maud appeared with this headboard!
Maud had it made for the impending trip to Scandinavian trade fair Formex.
So now Olivia thinks she would like a headboard too !
If you are interested in having embroidered cushions or headboards made up with a particular colour scheme or design we can email photos of the many vintage embroidered pieces we have in stock

Finishing touches

Olivia is now addicted to vintage linens and is finding simple yet inspirational ways to incorporate it all over the house...
She painted this unvarnished cork board frame and pushed the Petal Pink linen on the roll into the corners. The earrings hang from upholstery staples and dressmaking pins. Dyed Linen Rolls

Using an old basket and more Petal Pink linen on the roll, Olivia folded the vintage linen over the edges and sewed the fabric to the basket. A unique toilet roll basket, and now every room has some pink in it!

Sofa Project

Choosing linen to upholster a sofa is never easy, especially when there is natural, pink stripy and Petal pink to choose from! Olivia followed her very pink heart and went for Petal Pink.

Maud took this old sofa, an array of Petal Pink linens to a local upholsterers for guidance.

He wanted to make the most of the handsewn seams and delicate flower patterns in the linen by taking a very random and funky approach. Maud and Olivia requested the patch and embroidery should also be a feature.

Two weeks later the stunning, finished result appeared. It looks great with Olivia's pink curtains and cushions and has restored an antique sofa for a new life in a pink palace!

He wanted to make the most of the handsewn seams and delicate flower patterns in the linen by taking a very random and funky approach. Maud and Olivia requested the patch and embroidery should also be a feature.

Two weeks later the stunning, finished result appeared. It looks great with Olivia's pink curtains and cushions and has restored an antique sofa for a new life in a pink palace!

If you require any assistance with curtain or blind planning or maybe you are considering changing your interiors and would like to incorporate the Beyond France vintage linens, do not hesitate phone 01285 641867 or Contact us