After spotting a navy cushion at Next, Gemma Ramsey knew she wanted to theme her whole bedroom around it.
The Luxe Cut Velvet Geo Cushion featured diamond shapes and she splashed out on matching curtains for £205.
Looking at the style, Gemma realised the panelling trend would fit perfectly but she wanted to put her own twist on it.
Instead of the usual rectangle or square panels, the 29-year-old created diamonds, matching her accessories and making it feel like a really luxurious space.
Husband Scott, 29, helped create the look which cost them just £50 and took four days to make – two to build and two to paint it and leave it to dry.
‘The panelling was super cheap to create and I’ve been told it looks like a boutique hotel room,’ says Gemma, a mum-of-two children from Ipswich.
They moved into their project house in September and are transforming it bit by bit.
Gemma told money-saving community LatestDeals.co.uk. ‘It was very dated and needed a revamp. The décor was stuck in the 1990s.’
The couple was so eager to get started that they knocked through a wall on their second night in the property.
‘We’re planning a single storey extension so we wanted to complete the upstairs first, as that wasn’t changing structurally,’ says Gemma. ‘I wanted it to be somewhere I would be able to escape from the mayhem downstairs when the building work begins.
‘As our children now have their own bedrooms, we wanted to make the whole of the upstairs more modern, starting with the master bedroom.’
After spotting the £30 cushion in Next, her vision for the room started coming together.
‘I loved it. Plus, there were matching curtains available too,’ she says. ‘I’d never bought such expensive curtains before. At £205 I thought they cost loads, but I figured they would last. Plus, this was a house we were making into a home.’
‘I wondered if we could adapt the popular square and rectangle panelling designs into a diamond style design to match the cushion and the curtains.’
With some clever thinking, involving some rather complex mathematics, Scott turned Gemma’s vision into a reality.
‘Scott is very handy when it comes to DIY,’ she says. ‘He was a roof tiler by trade and he’s made a few things around the house, including a great window seat. He just has a natural flair for it.’
Scott bought some 4×2 strips of wood for £30 from Wickes and had them cut to size so they were 10mm thick and 2” wide.
He then set about figuring out the angles for the diamond pattern. After measuring and marking up the wall, he was able to start piecing it together.
‘The maths involved in working out the measurements was a bit tricky – especially working around all the plug sockets,’ she says. ‘Once he’d worked it all out and cut the pattern, however, the job was foolproof.
‘He focused on doing one full and complete diagonal length of the design first, using long strips of wood to go from the floor to the ceiling,’ says Gemma. ‘He then cut smaller pieces of wood to fill in the gaps and create the opposite slant of the diamond shapes.’
To frame the design, Scott added a strip all around the outside. Everything was attached using a heavy-duty glue.
Once the glue had dried, Gemma just had to paint it and pull everything together.
‘As the cushions and curtains were navy and silver, I was searching for ages for the right blue paint to use on the feature wall,’ says Gemma.
‘A local store is a Frenchic stockist so I popped along and they had painted a cabinet in a shade called Hornblower, which was displayed alongside a chest of drawers that were painted a silvery grey. It was a great combination so I knew I’d found the perfect shade in Hornblower.’
Gemma bought two 750ml tins for £19.95 each but ended up just using one full tin and the a tiny bit from the second.
‘The painting was taxing, as it was awkward having to get in-between all the wood and making sure it was well covered,’ she says.
Three coats and two days later, allowing time to dry, the work was complete. Next came the furniture and accessories.
‘My bed was from a Facebook company I stumbled across called Rachel’s Bed’s,’ says Gemma. ‘The bed linen was also from Next and I also got a new carpet, an accent chair and a blanket box.
‘The corner cabinet was my late father’s and it ties in perfectly with the diamond pattern on the glass. In total, I spent just under £1,500 on the furniture and accessories, not including the panelling.’
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