It’s been just over two weeks and we are finally unpacked and organised in our new home. Although we probably won’t be here for too long (it’s a temporary stop-gap until we hopefully buy a place), it’s still important we make it feel ours.

Part of that process has been choosing a few new pieces of furniture to replace tired or broken bits that we no longer had use for. First on that list was a new desk for Frog. 

Her old desk was a little table and chairs from Ikea, that I painted in bright red. The thing is, our current place has less room downstairs for a full table and chairs set, so it stayed outside and got damaged by the rain. In its place, we now have this gorgeous wooden desk from Wooden Toy Shop, which also doubles up as a storage box.

At three years old, Frog is becoming ever the independent diva (always has been, actually), so this desk is a great way to encourage her to get her own toys out and put them away again once she’s finished playing. With pistons on the hinges to stop the lid banging shut, it remains open when Frog is rummaging around for a jigsaw puzzle or colouring book.

The desk lives in the corner of our living room and – I’m pleased to say – it doesn’t take over the space at all. With bright colours and fun dinosaurs, it’s pretty enough not to want to hide away in a playroom. Plus, the storage element means the toys are tidy and not constantly cluttering up the rest of the room.

With a large surface area, the desk easily houses Frog’s pens and pencil crayons and provides a big enough space for even her largest of colouring and sticker books.

I’ve written before about how I’m a sucker for wooden toys and think they’re often a better buy than much of the plastic stuff on the market, and this desk is no exception. In fact, I was checking out the other items on offer on the site and came across some brilliant wooden play food which I’ve already marked as a possible Christmas present. The range is very impressive – and all at a reasonable price.

It goes without saying, Frog is delighted with her new desk and is currently sitting at it, drawing, as I type!

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This desk comes from WoodenToyShop.co.uk and retails at £86.95. There’s a range of different colours to choose from, including a Union Jack and flower design.

Disclosure: The desk featured in this post was provided for the purpose of this review. All opinions remain my own, naturally. 

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Most of our stuff consists of cast-off items no longer wanted by friends or relatives. We can’t paint the walls the colours we’d like, because we don’t own them. There is constant mess.

I don’t like living this way.

The thing is, we recently decided NOT to live this way. We earn enough cash between us to actually have nice things and save. OK, so we may not be able to paint, but we can put up shelves and spruce up old furniture. As long as this is our home (which it will be for a while longer at least) we want it to be a nice place to be. Working 70 hours a week has to have some benefits.

So we’re starting with the bedroom.

In typical parent fashion, we’ve made sure our daughter has the best of the best while we put up with second rate stuff. While she has bunting and solid oak furniture, hand-made quilts and fairy lights, we have dirty washing and 90s pine, broken drawers and dust.

I’ve been meaning to rectify this for the last month or so, but work, life and exhaustion has got the better of me. So when Feather and Black invited me to take part in the Bedroom Challenge, I thought this could be the kick up the backside I needed.

I have three weeks to change this:

… into a place I want to be in the evenings. I want to turn this space into somewhere I don’t mind going when I have to be in bed before 10pm for an early alarm call on a weekday morning. I want it to reflect myself and my husband’s tastes, rather than being a mish-mash of old furniture and mess.

I love the bedroom furniture on offer at Feather and Black. I would love to trade in this chrome bed I was given for my 16th birthday and replace it with something that my 6ft 5″ tall husband could sleep in comfortably. I’d love to say goodbye to the chrome and welcome a beautiful wooden bed in its place.

But with the mortgage deposit savings account firmly in mind, I have to try and do this room up on a more limited budget. There’ll be some new items but there’ll also be a bit of revamped love given to the pieces we already have.

I have three weeks to complete the challenge. During that time I’ll post about my progress, share any inspiration along the way and hopefully not make your eyes sore with more 90s furniture.

In the meantime, you can follow the other bloggers taking on the challenge at the Feather and Black Facebook page.

Wish me luck – and if you have any interior inspiration or words of advice I’m all ears. As you can see from the photos, I’m not exactly Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen.

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Disclaimer: Feather and Black have provided me with a piece of furniture and a small budget towards this challenge.

The post My bedroom (warning: this isn’t pretty) appeared first on Mother's Always Right.