Bedroom overhaul

I was going to say makeover, but that makes it sound like a lick of paint. This was more tearing down blown plaster and replacing bricks that had turned to dust. As usual we did everything ourselves apart from laying the carpet (expensive if you get it wrong!).

We'd considered our bedroom habitable when compared with other rooms in the house, but it was seeing a photo taken last Christmas Day – K opening her presents in our bed against a backdrop of falling down wall and grubby, ripped wallpaper – that made me realise how bad it really was. With the baby due in May we knew that if we didn't get it done now we never would.

This is the before photo taken when we first got the keys and hadn't moved anything in. It doesn't look too bad right?

But it was only the wallpaper that was holding the wall behind it together. When we stripped it, it looked like this:

You could feel a draught coming through the huge chunk of crumbling plaster in the corner. We'd inherited an ancient built-in wardrobe which was fine in the short term but it had a couple of doors missing so I was forced to see Mr's mess every day.

When I dismantled it I found this wallpaper. Can you imagine a whole room papered in this? It would give me a headache.

We cleared everything out of the room and moved our mattress to the living room. Our clothes were dotted around the house in bin liners. We planned to be sleeping like this for 2 weeks maximum but that soon ended up being a month and more. If I wasn't working on the days that K went to the childminders then I would change into my grim DIY clothes and spend the day painting and sanding. Incidentally, I found Heart FM to be the best station to work to, full of cheesy classics and guilty pleasures to sing along to.

 Mr hard at work. I've protected his identity with an image of Lord Keanu of Reeves.

I'd bought the paint for this room about 3 years ago! There was a coupon in a magazine to get a free tin of paint from Focus DIY, so I bought 2 copies and got 2 tins which had been squirreled away in the shed. Since then Focus has gone into liquidation and I really needed an extra tin. To get around this we wallpapered the chimney breast as a feature wall (I used Wallpaperdirect, they send you free samples in the post) and bought a dark grey for the opposite wall.

My only regret is having to buy Ikea furniture. I would have loved to get something vintage and a bit retro but I couldn't find anything big enough or that fitted the spaces we have, so we ended up buying flat pack. The gloss finish on the doors is great though and reflects a lot of light. It's brilliant having so much storage space, and as Mr and I have the luxury of a wardrobe each it means I never have to see his mess. The only problem is that the shiny new wardrobes make my clothes look shabby!

There are still a few finishing touches, the wardrobes need their handles (and I'm going to try my hardest not to junk up the top of them, although at the moment this is the perfect place to stash Christmas presents), the fire surround needs another coat of paint before it goes back on the wall, there are some pictures to put up and some skirting board to go on and I have a big bag of fabric for my MIL to make some lovely curtains with. The only question now is: was choosing a pale colour scheme a stupid idea when there will be a sicky, poopy baby sharing the room soon?