Shelving

OK, so things are progressing - maybe a bit slower than I would have liked but we ARE at least on track for Christmas!  Yay!

We have now painted the study (it is no longer a junk room as all junk is now spread over the rest of the flat - dammit!) and it looks AMAZEBALLS to coin a phrase from Mahj and well lots of other bloggers right now!  I am LOVING the colour we chose, despite being a bit apprehensive when it went on lovely and got darker and darker as it dried, eeek!  I woke up thinking it was going to be a dark grey and make the room oppressive and dingy as it only has one window right in the corner of the room!  However, we were lucky and it is in fact lovely, even at night with our measly light bulb - planning on improving that soon as well!

The colour we chose is Windswept by Valspar at B&Q.  (For some reason on their website it doesn't seem to exist, even searching with the number from our swatch 535V, but it closely resembles Winter Wind.)

So now we can start moving ahead with the furniture and accessories!  (i.e. The Fun Part!)  Before, it was a bit of a mismatched mess of things we already owned and combined when we moved in together.  Although my things were very mismatched anyway.  We had a beech wardrobe from Ikea, a birch desk & drawers set I inherited from my Mum (also likely to be from Ikea), A white filing cabinet (Ikea), an Oak bookcase from Habitat (bargain in the sale - ex-display I think so we snapped it up!), a beige MDF bookcase that Mum and I made when I was 18 and moved out (very proud of it!) which used to be purple (like the drawers I painted recently!) and Nik re-vamped using some spare paint we found, a white day bed (Ikea - seeing a pattern here!) and a black and cream set of drawers (no idea - these were Nik's).

We decided we needed to upgrade a few things (like the desk) and try and make the room more like it had been thought out rather than left over bits and bobs thrown in there with the junk!

We decided to get white furniture following my inspirations found on Pinterest and I found some great white desks.  I'm sad to say we went with an Ikea one again in the end - so boring of us I know but some of the stuff is such good quality and at such good prices who am I to argue and well, it looks great and was a fraction of the price of the other ones!  We are keeping the wardrobe as it has mirrored doors anyway so you can't see the beech very much.  The mirrors help bounce the light back into the room in its new position as well.

We do need some new shelving (I have managed to convince my brother to take the MDF home-made bookshelf as I can't bear to see it discarded!).  I originally had my heart set on this stunning bookcase from Habitat which I have lusted after for years but never quite had the space for.

Bakota from Habitat £700

I thought it would work with the rest of the furniture in white and be a great place to display a few of our African souvenirs and store some box files and books.  Since painting the room and seeing it with the nice white desk, I wasn't quite as sure and given that it is rather pricey (we have been waiting for a 20% off code online!) decided it's not worth the risk of me not liking it in there although we would like to try and invest in something that will last and is good quality like this one.

We have therefore been looking at white shelving to replace the beige MDF one and the Oak one (not sure what we're doing with that yet but it just doesn't go in our nice new grey room).  Here are a few contenders...

Aspen from Habitat £850 (eek!) and that doesn't include the 2nd shelf shown in the picture, that's an extra £50!)
BUT, the inside of the cupboards are green!!!
OK, we have ruled this out, but green!!

Anton by MADE £399
We both really liked this one but decided the glass ends didn't really go.

Elani from Furniture 123 £188.98
Great price and I love the reversible black and white panels for some sections
we could use a combination (and the rest would show the grey wall through)
We're not so keen on the top though - would prefer a flat defined edge - could possibly add a top ourselves though?

Sylvie from Furniture 123 £287.98
We would need 2 side by side though
We are also hoping to cover the concrete left from where there used to be a fireplace
and this one leaves the bottom very open.

Besta (and Billy) systems from Ikea £various
This one is probably a bit big but you can make your own design from all the bits!
We were put off this by the holes you can see (for adjusting the shelf height),
as we won't be filling it with just books, they would be visible.

So the one I suspect we will end up getting is again from Ikea!  OMG, we may have a bit of a problem, lol.  I think our study may end up looking like it could be in the Ikea catalogue!

Expedit from Ikea £129
This one looks a bit boxy but once filled with our files & ornaments
and a few black and white Ikea cupboard/drawer attachments I think it could look fab!

£14

£26

I just did a Google search for images with the attachments and found all manner of arrangements and uses.  And this blog post by Cindy of Stylish Serendipity who seems to love the collection and has collected just a few images including this one...

I think I am convinced!  What do you think?  Do you have any other suggestions??