Keen-eyed readers may remember this blog post from a few weeks ago. It was all about how a lovely twitter friend had been inspired by a previous PD Blog post and had decided to recreate the look in her own home. I was super excited to hear about the project, so I asked Rachel ( on twitter) if she would send me a follow-up once the tough task was completed. 

And now, here it is, complete with a Before & After, and I must say, it looks fabulous!


Hi Becky,

Well, we're pretty much done! It's taken ages, my Husband's a painter and decorator and typically I am last in the queue! It was a really interesting process as I was so in love with the original image you posted, but it quickly evolved into a very different look and feel to what we anticipated. 

It was surprisingly difficult to source similar designs to the original, we started looking through home magazines, googled all the key wallpaper manufacturers and went round the DIY sheds and started begging for 1m length samples! 

We had around 20 swatches to choose from and simply blu-tacked them to the rises, it became apparent really quickly that there were 3 designs we really liked, only one was the traditional floral (and even that was monochrome) so we decided to simply repeat the 3 using the monochrome as an alternate between the other two. We used a Jane Churchill hare design, for obvious surname reasons! An Orla Kiely and a Homebase print. 
 
So this is before we did anything:



Then we took the plaster off the wall and ripped the carpet up:

Next we painted the walls, added skirting boards, replaced the concrete landing with floor boards, scrubbed, stripped and sanded the treads too many times to mention (finishing them off with a limed wax) and then cross lined the rises. Before FINALLY adding the wallpaper and ending up with this! 

We've quite surprised ourselves as (for us) we've ended up with some bold prints, but are actually really delighted, especially when you see how conventional we were before!

Hope you like it

Rachel



I love a good DIY project, it's so fun to see the 'before' and 'after' and it's really interesting to see the difference between the starting inspiration and the finished product. 

What do you think of the wallpapers Rachel has used? Which is your favourite?

I think the choice of wallpapers really works well, with the limited colour tones stopping it feeling too 'busy', and the sweet reference to their name with the 'Hare' print. It's personal, individual and bold. Everything a home should be, in my opinion!

Thanks so much, Rachel, for sharing this wonderful project. I want to do it too now!

Becky