All Change! The Case of The Billy Bookcase

Okay, I admit defeat. There are some things you can't find secondhand and, in this case, it was a 80 cm tall Ikea Billy bookcase. I'd trawled eBay, Free-cycle and the Facebook selling sites for months but to no avail, the only ones in the size I wanted were horribly warped or so far away that once you'd factored in the cost of the fuel to the asking price it was cheaper to buy new, so last week we travelled 2.9 miles down the road to Ikea and bought one.

1950s drop-leaf Formica table (bought from a jumble sale over 10 years ago), vintage lab schools (one of 50 we rescued from a school skip after seeking permission), 1970s Frister Rossmann Cub 3 sewing machine (car boot sale)

We'd originally intended to put the bookcase on the landing and, in readiness, Jon gave it a fresh lick of paint and finally finished the wooden architrave around the bathroom window that he started 12 years ago (he likes to do things properly!) Although I'd measured the height and width of the bookcase, once we started to put it together we soon realised that the depth wasn't going to work and the only option was to rejig my sewing area and put Billy in the front bedroom instead.

My Mid-Century glazed cabinet (£5 from a jumble sale, painted with a £1 sample pot) was shifted to where the old bookcase* was on the landing. Before you accuse me of jumping on the flamingo bandwagon, that wallpaper's been up since 2005 - Cole & Son and hand printed, I'll have you know. It retails at £85 a roll but I found it for £6 on eBay. 

*The bookcase is now currently homeless!

I had a mass clear out of my sewing books and stuck a load of my vintage dressmaking patterns on eBay - where they sold in less than an hour. The remainder now fit in the drawer instead of crammed inside two vanity cases. I bought those ridiculous Art Deco penguin bookends from a church fair when I was 20. 

When we moved into Stonecroft back in 2005 I wanted to paint the bedroom walls dark grey, a colour popular in the Georgian era (our house was built in 1750). Back then I had to have the paint custom-mixed but now the rest of the UK seems to have caught up with my interior design choices and I was able to find a near identical shade of grey in Wilko. 

I might not wear grey but it's the perfect backdrop for my collection of Mid-Century art. You might remember me finding this 1950s plaster Amy Winehouse lookalike in a chazza last year for £1.

The print of her Maj with a spray can is by Mr Brainwash and was a present from Krista and Chris when they stayed with us back in 2012.

This 1958 Bernard Buffet print is called "Matador" and cost 75p from a town centre charity shop back in the early 1990s. There's an original Bernard Buffet painting in Walsall's New Art Gallery.

WEARING: 1970s Frank Usher maxi dress (charity shop, 2017), Topshop electric blue boots (less than half price in the January sales), Banjara tribal pendant (car boot sale, 2014)

Sorry about the state of the floorboards, Jon's pulled the rug back to paint the other side of the room and it's left a trail of dust in its wake. 

And the reason why I needed a Billy bookcase? It's the perfect size for Lundby dolls houses, they're both Swedish after all. I realise it's all gone a bit quiet on the doll's house front of late but real life keeps getting in the way. There is some exciting news though, my first Lundby renovation is about to featured in an international doll's house magazine. Here's my latest creation, it needs a few tweaks but it's almost ready to share.

See you soon!