This post's overview:
In this post, I would like to share with you our bedroom transformation and talk about the cost of renovating a bedroom in London. I will also share some tips on the DIY bedroom renovation & Boho bedroom interior/styling.
Without further ado, let’s get started!
If you’re new to this blog, hi, we are Liza and Pepe, a millennial couple based in London. We both have our 9-5 jobs; however, we travel whenever we can. In 2020, we also bought our first ever home – a Victorian cottage in London that needed a renovation. Follow our journey of DIY home renovation on our Instagram @ourlondoncottage.
Our Victorian bedroom transformation process & costs
When we moved in, we decided to start renovating two of the most important rooms – the bathroom and Master bedroom. While we delegated our bathroom to the professionals (if you want to find our about our bathroom refurb cost & process – feel free to check it out here), we decided to tackle the bedroom ourselves.
Our first step was stripping off the wallpaper. Unfortunately, the wallpaper didn’t come off easily, so we needed to buy a steam wallpaper remover like this one. We managed to finish removing wallpaper in about four days, as we were only working from 6:30 pm to 9 pm every day. If you can work on your house full time, you’ll be able to complete the task in about 1.5 days!
The next step was removing the carpet and just cleaning the mess we’ve done in the bedroom.
If you need to change your windows, do it at this step, as most probably, you would need to plaster the areas around the windows. We changed our windows much later (when we had the resources to do it and it has cost us around £1700 for two uPVC Georgian Sash windows).
Our next step was hiring an electrician to create a new socket in the wall for £100 and hiring the plasterers to skim the walls the next day for £350 (only three walls needed skimming).
We left the room for four days to dry and started priming the walls with the Farrow & Ball primer; however, if you want to stay on a budget, you can buy affordable white paint & use 1/2 paint 1/2 water as the primer. Later we just painted the walls with Farrow & Ball paint Dimity and Oxford Stone on the feature wall.
We paid people to install engineered oak floors and skirting boards – another £400 from our pocket.
Furnishing our Boho-style bedroom on a budget
Once the room was properly redecorated, we started ordering furniture. We got a bed with extra storage from Made.com, a rug from Amara, prints from Etsy, wardrobes, curtains and the chest of drawers from Ikea and the blanket from Amazon.
We also got a mirror and a vase from Sklum and the plants from Crocus. The storage ottoman was from Dunelm, wooden storage ladder from Urban Outfitters and a few other accessories – from Primark Home, Oliver Bonas (Plant pot) and Etsy (e.g. Salt Lamp).
Finally, we also made a headboard ourselves from the wooden planks we bought from Builders Depot & wood stain we bought from B&Q.
Final result & bedroom renovation cost
So, here’s the final result of our Boho bedroom transformation.
If you’re wondering about the total bedroom renovation cost in London, with the decoration, materials and furniture, it went to around £3800 in total – we tried to stay on a budget, but unfortunately, there were no floorboards under the carpet, so we had to buy engineered wood & also the walls were in a very bad condition and needed plastering.
Here’s how you can reduce the bedroom renovation cost:
- You can buy a carpet & install it yourself (especially if you like your bedrooms carpeted)
- You can use wallpaper instead of painting the walls
- You can paint existing floorboards
- You can buy furniture on Facebook Marketplace
Some other posts you might like:
Our bathroom transformation – the cost of refurbishing a bathroom in London
Our house renovation progress: month 3