Mixed interiors and keeping a child's room different.

Over the past year I have definitely been changing the interiors style of our home. I think over time I have been heading towards a more minimalist feel, getting rid of lots of clutter and trying to keep what's out on display to a minimum. I just like it to be tidy, and clear surfaces make any place look tidy. Please don't think for one minute that means our house is always spotless it just means I have given everything a home and even though it may take a day or two to get back there it means everything can be put away. Keeping clear is quite important to me so the way we started to decorate and style things became very clear cut. The kitchen was finished exactly a year ago and that was the biggest change for the downstairs in recent times. The kitchen was made into a space where I could put everything away. I didn't want appliances out and that was the main focus is styling it all. With that done the last year has been about introducing clean lines, simple shapes and most recently a dark colour in our bedroom. Mixing these with wood, simple greys and whites, our house is at its most simple. Now while that is all going on there is one room that has kept a little bit more of a childish theme, and rightly so. The kids share a bedroom, they have done for 2 years now and it is the best room in the house still. I don't share enough pictures of it really and recently with the injection of a few new pieces from Great Little Trading Co it has opened their room up even more and meant that all their stuff can still be put away; just how I like. But I think the style of this recent piece has kept the childishness of the room and still, even though incredibly stylish and simplistic, means that the kids' bedroom is still a kids' bedroom.

The STAR BRIGHT is one that we are now quite immersed in. We have a few pieces which are all from the collection which I love. The kids' room was always a light grey with a star theme on the beds and this collection of furniture has sat so well against it. The cut out star which marks each piece of the collection also makes the pull for all the drawers and I find it really nice as metaphorically every day the kids are "reaching for the stars" when they get ready. The newest piece we have is this beautiful CHEST OF DRAWERS. For the kids, this is a shared piece, it houses socks, pants and pyjamas. The drawers are deep and wide and fit all of their things perfectly. Storage was always a struggle in their room and from the beginning I wanted to make it easy for the kids to access their own things. We made boxes on wheels under their beds for their clothes and always had a chest between their beds, but our old one was from a charity shop and got to the point where we couldn't keep painting it. This new chest replaces it perfectly and is actually even easier for the kids to use. It glides perfectly on its casters and is another piece that brings independence to our kids.

The other week I posted a post about a new ABBEVILLE storage unit we got which has a very similar feel to the Star Bright furniture which we use for fancy dress clothes. Everything sits in baskets which are all child accessible, which again makes for easy living. It stores what we need, keeps it simple but still looks modern and stylish.

The children's bedroom is a simple room still, I keep most of the furniture white which I suppose means it does fit in with the rest of the house really. They have lovely bedding and lamps which are very nursery themed, classic, English, soft colours and linen fabrics which will look perfect for years. The room also houses a rug that we got from GLTC 2 years ago, and it still looks perfect even though it gets run over every single day. The room is perfect for the kids and great for what we want it to be right now. While Raph isn't asking for super heroes wallpaper and Etta isn't requesting princesses, I just love this simple stylish room as a mixed room for both!