Sweden Comes To Stonecoft - Our Bathroom Makeover in Collaboration with Photowall

 

Of all the rooms in our house, the bathroom is the one our visitors (remember them?) say they love the most. Originally a toilet in a room the size of a cupboard, Jon knocked the walls down and started from scratch, creating a bigger space by utilising a third walk-through bedroom and partitioning it off with stud walls and glass bricks.

Whilst installing the walk-in shower he discovered this fireplace, hidden away for decades under a sheet of plasterboard, a surprise to both us and to Mum, who grew up in the house and had no idea that it had been in her bedroom for most of her childhood. 

The natural light in the bathroom comes through the landing window and filters through the glass bricks directly opposite. We painted a feature wall in a deep chocolate brown but, concerned that it would make the room too dark, went for white on the remaining walls.

This has irked me for a while. Whilst the white paint does bounce some light back into the bathroom, the walls look cold, clinical and - to be brutally honest - downright boring. No amount of interesting framed pictures or houseplants improve the overall effect.

Shortly after posting our lockdown kitchen makeover post (HERE) I received an email from Swedish company, Photowall, saying that they loved our interior style and wondered if we'd be interested in choosing a piece of wall art from their website in exchange for a review on my blog. A quick perusal of their site and I was beyond excited, I'd found the perfect solution to our boring bathroom wall dilemma, a mural called Old Paint Cracked Wall, perfect for a couple as passionate about damaged, decaying and derelict buildings as we are. Who wants pristine white paint when you can have an atmospheric crumbling plaster wall (minus the mess)?

SOURCE

Our mural was printed to order in Stockholm and delivered by DHL less than a week later. We opted for the premium quality paper which was anti-reflective and extra matt although both the standard and premium are supplied with wallpaper paste.

The mural comes on a roll with each section numbered and referred to as tiles, each tile goes up in sequence and has to be lined up accordingly with the last piece you put up. Jon says that if you have a perfectly straight wall, installing the mural would be a breeze, the quality of the paper is astounding and the instructions are clear and easy to follow. Of course, our 270 year old house is wonky and uneven so it wasn't quite as straightforward but, even so, Jon managed to get it done in a couple of days and we absolutely love it!

It was hard to tell by looking at the roll but in situ it does look exactly like an aged plaster wall. From being a bit echo-y and cold, the bathroom now feels warmer, atmospheric and more intimate. The pink tones in the mural complement the Jacobean Oak floorboards and chocolate brown paint beautifully and, unlike when they were backed by a white wall, now my Victorian tiles really stand out.  

The new radiator looks really good against it, too.

My only issue is that the wooden loo seat now looks very orange, we need to invest in a darker one.

In addition to producing some truly beautiful wall art, Photowall have an excellent environmental policy. All production is done to order, no products are held in stock or discarded unnecessarily. The printing ink used contains no solvents or hazardous chemicals and is biodegradable. Any waste material generated by the production process is recycled. Each purchase from Photowall supports the company's work with Swedish development company,  Vi Agroforestry, planting over 5000 trees a year in the area surrounding Lake Victoria in East Africa.

 

As I mentioned before, I get lots of invitations and offers to promote stuff on my blog but it nearly always gets dismissed. I loved Photowall's professional but friendly approach (they actually read my blog!) and the quality of their product has blown me away. I think I want to move our bed into the bathroom so I wake up facing this wall! 

Photowall are offering all my blog readers a 25% discount on all their products, available until 20th January, 2021 using this code: vintagevixon25