Purge’s punk rock room: making the most of a share-house space

Guest post by Purge

Me and my fiance, Fernz.
I like to describe my fiancé and my room as a “punk rock gyspy caravan museum.”

We are both very much into DIY projects, installation art, whimsical settings and antique furniture. As we generally can’t afford the latter, we’ve become expert dumpster divers (always keep an eye out for great finds during council clean up on your streets), Gumtree or Craigslist finds, or things friends are throwing out. Any of these things can be painted, destroyed, reworked and made into an amazing feature piece for your room or house.

I’ve always believed your room is your sanctuary, a place to relax and breathe, to feel content to be within and come home to. I’ve also lived in many share-houses in my time, and this is no exception.

A lot of rental properties do not allow the use of nails or other permanent modifications as per the rental agreement. But I’ve found that there are always ways around this.

Get creative with picture rails.

In older homes these generally feature prominently — they’re the high up border surrounding the room. I use these to hang coat hangers from and from these I have art works, flags, bunting, and my fiancé has even used them to put up surround sound speakers.

Hung art from a green picture rail. That's also a broken door we use to create another storage space. And note the hung decor from the light fixture

Blu-tack is also highly reliable.

As long as it doesn’t leave oily marks, though these can be easily removed with a bit of metho (or rubbing alcohol).

Hang things from your light fixtures.

Dresser with a cabinet on top. I have also hung the lanterns using a ribbon strung from one door skirting to another door skirting. The picture frames on the doors of the dressing tables contain Mark Ryden pictures, I used liquid nails to glue these on.

Build up, not out.

I’ve got cabinets on top of cabinets, shelves on top of end tables, manniquins on bookshelves, and I like to hang flags and drape fabrics because it makes the room feel warm.

My wedding corset (just waiting 'til after the wedding to submit to offbeat bride)!

This also allows maximum hoarding of your cool stuff!

I’ve come to learn to walk a fine line between social housing and having my own space. How much room you have is of no consequence, as long as it’s yours and you make it just so.

Comments on Purge’s punk rock room: making the most of a share-house space

  1. I can’t believe no one has commented on this yet…. I absolutely love this! It makes me feel like my ridiculous mess of a bedroom could actually become a wonderful showcase/museum/display of all the things we love. While empty spaces definitely have their place, hooray for filling spaces up with “you”ness too! 🙂

    • fill ALL the spaces! thanks so much 😀 it’s nice to have some time to yourself and position things just so, that’s where all my spare time goes lol!

    • i got these from teks (in australia) for $2 a pop! i’ve since found them in a few 2 dollar shops around the place and strung them up with some ribbon i found and two tacks. the lights have burned out but they still look cool!

  2. Amazing room! Not too dis-similar from my own room that I share with my fiancé (also looking forward to your offbeat bride post!), our room is composed off freebies from family and a few skip dives…I also really want the Henry Rollins flag picture and might go about making one today.

    • offbeat bride post is on the way! just waiting for the professional photos back 😀 we got married on saturday! freebies and hand me downs are the best for redoing or creating a feel. my sister painted me the henry rollins, sid vicious and angus young paintings for a punk art show we were involved in last year, i couldn’t bare to part with them!

  3. Two things:

    HENRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. I have a poster of him with a bloody nose in the office from which I write this comment.

    Secondly, YOU ARE PERFECT. Oh my god, superbabe. Seriously. So hot.

    • omg henry is the man! we saw him recently and he was so inspiring.
      aww thank you 😀 i scrub up ok! hahahaha! thank you for your kind words 🙂

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