Our Lounge Room Scandi Boho Makeover

**This post is written in conjunction with our partners Monsta, but all views in relation to the products used are my own.
The renovations continue and we are very excited to be partnered with Monsta in our next few rooms, starting with the lounge room. When we moved in, one of the main walls in this room had a door through to the extension that was added in the 1970’s. Many years ago we had that filled in, creating more areas to sit and pulling the room together. It is the room our 9 year old likes to lounge around in, and the place we retire to in the evenings to watch television and chat. We tend to sit in our back room in the day and head in here as the sun starts to set. I guess in the old days, it would have been the more formal lounge. It has high ceilings but is not an overly light room due to the carport outside, so we added a skylight a while ago. The room was in dire need of a coat of paint and some TLC.


The floors in here are original oak and like the ones in many other areas, have seen better days. They really needed a refinish but would not take much more sanding, hence this was part of our decision to paint the floors across the house in our scandi boho makeover. I also wanted the rooms to flow, and have the same floor colour and trims throughout, other than the lino in the kitchen – but this has the same grey blue tones. We are keeping a similar paint colour throughout the house, using calming greys, greens and blues, with touches of white for ceilings and trims.

In this room, we road tested the Monsta Ceiling White, and I used the Monsta Wood Wash in White, on the big old timber bookcase that was in the small office when we moved into the house in 1998. The wood wash effect really works well with our scandi boho style. I am now working on some kind of feature on the fireplace surround, but more on that later!

In the lounge reno our basic process was:

1. I cleaned out the room and decluttered in the process
2. I emptied and painted the bookcase and the wall behind it, John attached it back on the wall
3. I cleaned all of the walls, ceiling and floors with sugar soap
4. John patched holes and picture hooks we didn’t want anymore and then painted the ceiling and cornice with 2 coats of ceiling white. The cornices really could do with replacing as they are old and wonky but we could not do that in this makeover, so a bit old and wonky it is, if not nice and white now!
5. I cut in the walls top and bottom
6. We painted the walls with rollers in the Grey
7. John hand sanded the floors lightly with our little orbital sander
8. I vacuumed the dust up
9. John applied 2 coats of the floor paint with a roller – it is 30 mins touch dry and 2 hours recoat. By 2 hours after the second coat we move furniture carefully back in
10. I painted the skirting boards and quad with 2 coats of water based enamel paint, as well as the door frames and doors
11. Moved it all back in again!

 MONSTA MAKEOVER CEILING PAINT

A crisp white trim and ceiling white are key in a successful grey/blue colour scheme. I believe that you then need to warm the rooms up with pops of colour and metallics. The cool calm palette works in perfect partnership with whites. A good ceiling white is important – it is like the icing on the cake! We found that the Makeover Ceiling White from Monsta has great hiding power on our old ceilings and gave an excellent finish.

John thought he had left a few patches at first but it was due to shadows and as it dried it evened out well. Compared to other brands we have used we and found it to be creamy and easy to apply, with a lovely finish and no nasty chemical smells. We will use it in the remainder of our rooms. We are very much partners when we renovate a room – he does the prep and ceilings, while I do the wall painting and cutting in. In this room he also did the floors, and I painted the trims, bookcase and woodwork.



bookcase during the wood wash process

MONSTA COLOUR WASH

When we moved into our house, there was a big custom made timber bookcase in the little office. Over the years we moved it to various rooms, finally settling in our lounge room. Over time it had stickers stuck to it by kids, knocks and bumps, and needed a makeover. I was keen on a woodwash, so that we could still see the grain of the timbers. The Monsta Colour Wash range is perfect for this. Referred to as giving the Scandinavian effect, Monsta Colour Wash forms a washed effect to highlight surfaces the paint is applied to – there are 8 colours and chose white for this project. I am going for the grey on a piece of pinboard as well, when we get to my office.

I spent most of a day prior to our weekend of renovating this room, painting the bookcase and the wall behind it, so that we could move it back into place ready for the full room renovation. It was no mean feat emptying it I can tell you! There was a lot of dusting to be done. I also painted the strip of floor underneath it. This saved time when we moved to the full room reno. I think it is a useful tip to do as much prep as possible and paint furniture prior to your room makeover, as it means once done, you can place all of your furniture back into place more quickly.

I found the finish of the Wood Wash to be totally gorgeous. You can build the opacity of the wash by adding coats. I decided to do two coats, as I felt one was just not enough and any more than this may have been too heavy for what I wanted. I practised first on a couple of chairs. It has a soft matte finish, almost chalk like, but the with the grain coming through, and lends itself to a scandi or coastal style. I found it easy to work with, but it was tricky getting the brush strokes right when painting the bookcase, due to all of the angles. On the long sides of the shelves and the shelf tops, it was easy, but painting the verticals and undersides was tricky. The paint requires fairly long even strokes to get a nice finish. It dried quickly and the finished result is just beautiful.It can be used on bricks as well as timber and I am looking forward to trying it on the pinboard.



We feel the lounge room now seems bigger and the colours are very soothing. My idea of a French Country House vibe, with our Scandi Boho touches, is bringing each room together. I have a few touch ups to do in this room, and some ideas for a feature on the fireplace, but mostly it is done. The furniture is all existing. The rug I bought secondhand from our guy at the Post Office who brought it with him from overseas. The coffee table was made by a great craftsman, Michael Hayes from old telegraph poles! The mid century brown leather couch is Danish and came from a secondhand store in Adelaide. The gold velvet couch came from a vintage store too, and the chairs via gumtree and ebay. Most of the items we already had decor wise. The boho wall hanging I bought from Macrame by Mel on Instagram and some cushion covers from The Coastal Cushion Company.

If you want more information about Monsta products head here – they are an Australian manufacturer based in my hometown of Adelaide. They have a heritage of 30 years in the business of making quality building consumables that have been used by DIY and professional trades locally and overseas. The Monsta founder has always cared about sustainable building products, using non-hazardous materials, making products safer and the environment cleaner. The Monsta crew allow you to access quality DIY products a simpler way  –  direct to you from the manufacturer. The way it works is that you select online what you want, when you want it and have it delivered to wherever you want. I am looking forward to sharing our road test of some of their other products in our next couple of rooms! Monsta are offering our readers a 15% discount off all Monsta purchases – just use the discount code monsta15
Helen