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Becca Broe Studio

@beccabroe.studio

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🏩 My home in the sky: a work in progress 🪐☁️
Making as much by hand as I can 🪡
Upcycling, DIY, second hand & vintage hunting
📍Manchester

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Hi! I’m Becca Broe - known as Bex.

I’ve always loved making things and creating personalised spaces.

My Granny had me on a hand-powered sewing machine from the age of 5 until I could be trusted with the electric one. At 13, I rocked up at school with feathers, cushions and throws to make a den on the top of the lockers for our lunch breaks. They made me take it down.

At home, I moved into furniture; crackle glaze, wood effect tools.. no surface was safe. I also remember begging my parents to let me paint a full-scale Provençal countryside scene on my bedroom wall. I was 10. They declined.

Since then, I’ve lived in lots places; Hong Kong, Ibiza, Mumbai, London, and Lisbon. Wherever I’ve been, I’ve always made the space feel like mine.

I spent the last 5 years living in Lisbon, where I had my dream apartment and found the absolute GOLD that could be found in the bins on an early weekend morning - ready for me to give a new life to.

You find me now in Manchester, turning a new space into home.

I don’t think I have a particular interiors style. There’s some vintage - 70’s, 90’s, a bit of boho, nightlife influences and things I have picked up on my travels. I guess it’s similar to how I dress, I’m drawn to all sorts and like putting it together.

I try to source second-hand where I can and I’ve never been interested in ‘must-haves’. Not really into the designer bag, big logos or viral dresses. I’d much rather find something with a story - or turn it into something no one else has.

I’m a ‘let’s give it a go’ type person. I’ll have an idea and figure out how to make it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. One project generally leads to another idea.

You can expect projects, finds, finished spaces, my fails and how not to make them.

Maybe it will spark an idea for your own home too!

Bex
X by @beccabroe.studio

I decided to make as much as I could for my new home as possible; whether it be from scratch or up-cycling. This weekend I did the new curtains for the living room and a cover for the long sofa cushion.

I enjoy working out how to do things, it’s sometimes trial and error but I can usually get there in the end.

It’s a long process but I know it will be worth it in the end.

I’ve a few more things still to do in this main living space. I hope you’ll join me.

Bex
x by @beccabroe.studio

Manchester second hand clothing lovers: I didn’t take it all!! Oxfam Cheetham Hill is 🔥🔥🔥

I love a charity shop rummage but certainly didn’t expect to find all of this today. It is so well organised with plenty of room to try everything on and there is also a small homewares and kids section upstairs - as well as a cafe.

Cheetham Hill retail park is my idea of a 👌🏼 Sunday shop; B&Q, M&S Foodhall, TK Maxx and the @oxfamsuperstoremanchester LOVE 💚 by @beccabroe.studio

I can’t wait any longer. The Doodle Drawers reveal - and I need your help please. Do I keep going with it?

The idea is fun, a 3D guestbook (and amazing for kids to get involved in), but I feel like it needs to be really full to look good and unless you have a really busy household, it’s going to take a long time.

I was inspired by some Dale Hardiman furniture I found on Pinterest.

I really recommend using one colour for the paint and a darker shade of that colour for the pen to drawer. Especially with multiple artists adding their doodles. I used a posca pen. The drawers are Ikea and the paint is B&Q Valspar - blue magpie. by @beccabroe.studio

£3.84 eBay boots - worth a billion dollars to me 🧡 by @beccabroe.studio

A lesson it took me 16 hours to learn on my first curtain attempt…

I have an entire wall of glass doors. They make my apartment so beautifully bright and it’s a big reason I took this place. So I decided to make these curtains and block half of that light 🙈

I had not factored in that there is no room to pull the curtains back so they’d be blocking almost half the window up even in the day! I had this decadent idea of big velvet curtains which totally block any light from coming through. Fantastic in a drafty farmhouse - not in a modern bright apartment. OOOOPS.

They also really didn’t fit the design vibe and after 16 hours spent on making them - I was soooo disappointed!!

Thankfully I thought of someone whose place would suit these way better and they’ve gone to a very good home. In the meantime, I have ordered a stunning aqua blue linen to make a much lighter pair and will forever remember this curtain lesson.

Keep an eye out because I’m making them this weekend.

Bex x by @beccabroe.studio

Can you help me with the bathroom please?????

I’m not a work-in-progress kinda lady. I like things done quickly BUT i also know that the best rooms do not happen in one go - are they ever even complete?!

I had plans that have already changed as I tried them out in here. I was always going to have the walls and woodwork as white but I’ve decided recently to repaint the whole place a very pale muted plaster pink. I’ll hate myself for that decision but know it will look 👌🏼

I try and make/upcycle/source second hand as much as possible. I’d love for you to follow along as I do.

Bex
x by @beccabroe.studio

A walkable and beautiful European city that you maybe haven’t been to before…

Krakow was SUCH a perfect weekend away for a thrifty vintage lover like me (see the leather pants I bought on the last pic 🤤)

I flew on Friday evening from Manchester airport, got a very easy Uber to my accommodation (around 25mins from the airport). Saturday I spent in the second hand and vintage stores (you’ll walk around them all easy). Sunday morning I did the markets before flying home in the evening. As many stores close Sunday afternoons and the markets are in the mornings, your sightseeing and history hunting is best Sunday pm.

Save it for your next trip inspo,

Bex by @beccabroe.studio

…and now I want to do the whole apartment.

Originally all these covered balcony walls were white. I did those first and realised how much better it would look if I colour drenched it and did the ceiling too.

In the summer it felt very Mediterranean but I had a feeling that once the autumn winter hit, it would really come into its own. It frames the greyer skies beautifully haha!

Now I want to paint the entire apartment in a paler shade of this. It will be a mammoth job but I just keep thinking how great it will look and create such a flow from the outside in.

Will keep you posted. I’d love to know if you’ve painted any of your balcony spaces too?

Bex
x by @beccabroe.studio

Super quick and easy if you fancy giving a DIY project a go yourself.

Let me know if you try it,
Bex
x

• cork boards - Ikea
• staple gun - anywhere
• carpet adhesive - hardware store
• fabric - reuse something or just get a remnant. Nothing too thick.
• straps - I used up some bias binding, you could use ribbon. Anything! by @beccabroe.studio

If you’re looking for crochet curtains, try searching for tablecloths ♥️

I have a lot of window to fill, so you can imagine how thrilled I was with myself when I came across a pair of crochet tablecloths on @vinted HURRAH (although the seller clearly measured them before she washed them because they were missing a few inches 🙄).

These were super easy to sew curtain tape along and I left some space at the top so it would fold over and cover the back of the tape showing through also.

I have a sheer curtain also up on a double track.

When the light shines through the crochet it makes the prettiest shadows!

Bex
x by @beccabroe.studio