I decided that the renovation would be my creative project and not a grueling inevitability. And it helped me to relate more easily to all the vicissitudes of this process. There was excitement: what will I get in the end. In addition, I was in no hurry and did repairs only in my free time.

I am not a designer, but I feel colors, style and combination of textures. This is a family one: my brother is an artist, and my mother recently became interested in drawing with watercolors. And I also love different sites and groups in social networks where interesting interiors can be found. It seems to me that such “watching” helps a lot when you independently come up with an interior design.

Therefore, a rough picture of how I want to see my room immediately appeared in my head. That’s what mattered to me.

Painted walls, not wallpaper. I wanted bright colors and decided that three walls would be blue and one would be yellow. I also didn’t want to glue the wallpaper, because it’s an additional procedure, and I needed to make everything easier and faster. The option of painting old wallpaper was also not suitable: they had been hanging on the walls for twenty years and I wanted some kind of update.

The furniture is gray. I decided that I would repaint my grandmother’s lacquered furniture to make it look more modern. I chose the gray color because I thought that the gray shelving would look great against the yellow wall. The combination of these colors is one of my favorites.

Ottoman bed. I did not consider the sofa or the couch, because I wanted to sleep on the bed: so that in the evening I could just throw back the covers and lie down, and in the morning I could cover everything back. I am tired of “sofa rituals”: in the evening to lay out and make a bed, in the morning to remove the linen and put the sofa back.

Before proceeding with the repair, I found and saved pictures from Google and Pinterest with the desired result to a folder on my laptop, sorted everything by color and their combination. I knew that this is what interior designers do: they put together mood boards, or mood boards, for visualization and inspiration.

Pinterest is also convenient in that you can save all the pictures you like directly to your board in it – this is how user folders are called on this site. I also recommend doing a search query on Pinterest in both Russian and English, because the results are very different. Upon request in English, you will receive more images, as this social network is popular all over the world.

Work plan

It always seemed to me that renovation is difficult and expensive. I thought that I could not cope with it on my own, since I did not understand building materials, I did not know what and how to do. But there were no other options, because there was no money to hire craftsmen. Therefore, I had to do everything myself and as cheaply as possible.

My brother helped me. He did the repair himself a few years ago and suggested which materials to buy. For example, he advised to take ordinary plaster instead of the famous “Rotband”. It is cheaper and perfectly suited for my tasks. My brother also said what paint is needed for walls, ceilings, windows and radiators. He explained what to paint and in what sequence. Without his advice, I would have spent much more time, effort and money on repairs, figuring out what’s what.

I didn’t want to do everything perfectly correctly and strictly according to technology. It was important for me to meet the budget and put the room in order – so that it was clean, tidy and just pleasant to be there. And I also wanted to preserve the spirit of Peter, for which the apartments in the old fund are so famous. Therefore, I did not strive to level the walls, ceiling and window openings up to European standards.

Stages of work:

1. Tear off the wallpaper.
2. Seal nail holes and small dents in the walls.
3. Prime the walls.
4. Paint the walls, ceiling, windows and door.
5. Repaint furniture.

What conclusions did I draw thanks to this repair

1. You don’t have to be an interior designer to come up with something unusual for your home. You can search for ideas, for example, on Pinterest.
2. You can transform your furniture by sanding and painting it in a different color.
3. There are different types of paints – water-dispersion, acrylic, alkyd and others. I took the most budgetary option and did not delve into how they differ. But even if I chose not the best paint option, I still like the result of the repair.
4. You can save money if you do not buy materials, but look for them in the groups “Stroyshering” or “Give it for free” in social networks. There, people sell cheaply what they have left after renovation. And sometimes they just give it away.