HOME: Kitchen Renovation

I think it's finally time to share our kitchen renovation that was actually due to be finished on the day Isabella was born, well over three years ago. We worked on creating our dream kitchen for 12 months in total, with the large distraction of our daughters birth in the middle of that. It's fair to say its been a slow process but there has been many challenges we've had to overcome, such as wonky walls and floors, damp, a wall that needed more support etc. In fact the problems have been endless and reoccuring but that's the joy of an old house! 

HOUSE: Is this the house we could make into a home?

(Photo Credit)

I have mentioned here and there on my blog that my husband and I recently bought a house, a 'project' house. We had been looking for a house to buy for over 2 years but couldn't find something we liked that was in our price range and in the area we wanted to live. As our wedding approached in August 2014 we stopped looking, as we were just so busy with everything else. However with the news of a baby arriving in the early months of 2015, we really needed to get our skates on and find a house. After we returned from our honeymoon we started the search again, but this time with a different attitude. Originally we had been looking on the rightmove and zoopla apps, if we saw something we liked we would think about it for a couple of days before 'getting around' to ringing the estate agent to organise a viewing. We had liked a couple of houses in the past but after viewing them we just weren't quick enough in letting the estate agents know we were interested. 

This time that all changed. As soon as we saw a house we liked the look of we rang the estate agents to organise a viewing at the next available time. When we went to see the house we ended up buying we knew it wasn't in a 'habitable' state, so we entered looking for potential. This was a much better attitude to have and one that in the end allowed us to find a house which is perfect for us and our soon to be family. I'd highly recommend adopting the attitude of looking for potential, rather than is this house perfect for us as it is? The exciting thing about taking on a project is the potential. The potential to create the most perfect home for yourselves. The potential to make money. The potential to put your own stamp on the house.

(Photo Credit)

We fell in love with the house straight away and just knew it could be perfect for us and our baby. We saw it on a Friday afternoon and again on Saturday morning (acting fast is key) with my Dad, as he knows a lot about older houses and the potential problems that can occur. It got the thumbs up from my Dad, so as soon as we got back into the car after the viewing we rang the estate agents to make an offer. We had made the mistake of taking too much time to think about it before and we weren't going to again! As the owners lived abroad we had to wait a couple of days to see if they would accept our offer. Fast forward a couple of days and Tom got a phone call saying they hadn't accepted our first offer, which wasn't a surprise. We made another offer and made it clear that was our final offer, you have to be ruthless in the house buying world. They accepted!

Then there were months of paperwork, solicitors, mortgage advice, meetings, negotiations, checks - I can't comment too much on this part of this process because Tom dealt with a lot of it. Being pregnant meant I was falling asleep only an hour or so after returning from work everyday. I wasn't much use - I just did what I had to do, attended the meetings I had to and signed when I needed to. Tom was an absolute star.

When we finally picked up the keys to our new house, we were so excited we drove straight to the new house to start the renovation project. We decided to have a month overlap at our rented house, so we had a month to get some of the messy DIY jobs out of the way. We've now moved in and currently don't have a kitchen or proper bathroom (though the bath was fitted last weekend - I could have cried!). We have someone coming to decorate the nursery over this next weekend, which is seriously exciting. The rest of the house will just have to wait. It will be fine though, as long as we knuckle down and get the majority done before the baby comes.

Next time we would consider hiring an extra pair of hands from Shiply to help with the move, taking away a lot of the stress!

Would you consider taking on a house project?

Feel free to leave me a comment :)

Helen x

HOUSE: Our Bedroom Haul feat. Homebase, IKEA and Old English Company

Our new house is a project and I assigned myself our bedroom as my focus. We still haven't finished it, but it's much further along than the rest of the house. It was a fun, exciting and not too painful journey and now we are living at the house our bedroom is our retreat/sanctuary from the rest of the building site of a house! We took a lot of inspiration from Pinterest and decorating blog posts (if anyone has any decorating blog posts then please leave your link below!), so I thought I'd share with you some of the more decorative items we bought. Let's be honest sourcing, finding and buying the decorative items is the best part of decorating a room! 

These photos were all taken on my iPad, as we were setting up our bedroom at night. Hence the 'atmospheric' (poor) lighting. 

We decided to upgrade to a king size bed, with a baby on the way we were told by a number of people that getting a bigger bed was a must. We opted for the LEIRVIK Bedframe from IKEA (£90 for the frame). We also got our mattress from IKEA but I can't remember what it's called, sorry. It was £250, so not too bad for a king size mattress. 

As we changed to a king size bed we then had to get a bigger sized mattress protector. This Silentnight Mattress Protector was from Homebase (£17.99 reduced to £11.99). It's nicely padded on the top, to make our mattress even more comfortable. It's also machine washable, which I'm sure will come in handy when our baby makes an appearance!

We opted for a Home of Style Egyptian Cotton Fitted Sheet in White from Homebase (£13.99), again very easy to put on the bed and hasn't creased really easily either which is a bonus! 

As our bedroom is following a grey colour scheme Tom fell in love with this king size NYPONROS duvet cover and pillowcase set from IKEA (£45). It matches our room perfectly, the only slight downside is that because our duvet isn't fro, IKEA the duvet cover is slightly too big. IKEA make king and double beds using the EU sizes, which are slightly bigger than the UK's standard double and king sizes. So unless you buy everything from IKEA there will be some slight size difference. The next duvet cover set we buy won't be from IKEA, just so hat it fits properly. 

I had been looking and looking for a king size duvet but they were just so expensive, even places like TK Maxx we're selling them for over £50. I had also originally wanted an 'all seasons' duvet set, so that you get two duvets (one lighter for summer and one thicker for winter) but that made them even more expensive. Tom had really wanted a Duck and Down duvet, since staying in a B&B with one. So when I spotted this King Size 10.5 Tog Duck and Down duvet in the sale at Sainsburys I knew Tom would love it. It was originally around the £70 mark I think. It had been reduced to £39.99 and then when I scanned it at the till it came up at £30! Such a bargain for the quality and size.

I bought these two pillowcases (£25) for Tom's birthday, after seeing them on Zoella's blog. They're from a company called Old English Company and I just think they are such a cute edition to our bedroom. 

This throw is from Primark and I couldn't believe it when I saw it, it looks similar to a number of MUCH more expensive throws I had been eyeing up and it was only £10! It's a really decent size, soft to touch and is a grey/green/cream colour combination. It adds a subtle bit of colour into our bedroom. 

As part of our rather large Homebase haul we also picked up these Angled Desk Lamps in Soft Grey for £15 each in the sale (they are still in stock in some stores). I love the slight industrial design to them and the fact that you can direct where the light goes. We both have one on our bedside tables. 

Tom bought me this cute knitted grey hot water bottle for Christmas and it matches our colour scheme perfectly. It was from eBay for around £6, so a real bargain too. Our house doesn't have any heating at the moment, so it will definitely come in handy! 

Where would you recommend getting decorative items from for bedrooms?

Feel free to leave me a comment :) 

Helen x

LIFE: Reflecting On The Life Changes 2014 Bought

2014 was THE year. 

The year I married the love of my life. 

The year we found out we were expecting our first baby. 

The year we bought a house together. 

Busy to say the least. 

2014 started off like any other year, we welcomed in the new year together - only knowing that we would be marrying that year. This, of course, is an exciting thought in itself. We spent the first part of the year researching, spending and preparing for our August wedding. I really enjoyed the wedding planning process (a lot of which is documented here on my blog) but when it finally came to an end I was quite glad. It was all consuming and it seemed like a constant money pit! We both got to a point when we were looking forward to just having a 'normal' weekend - baking, going for walks, snuggling on the sofa, exploring cute towns etc. The things we like doing together. Our wedding planning had meant every weekend was spent over at Tom's families house (as we were getting married over in Lincolnshire) sorting stuff out, meeting people and spending more money. When we finally got married we had the most amazing day with everyone we love - plenty of special memories we will treasure forever. 

Around the middle of the year was also when we found out we were expecting our first baby! We had decided to start trying for a baby, so it wasn't a surprise yet it did feel like a surprise. I'm not sure why, I guess I had always wondered if I'd be able to have children and had never known if I would be able to, until we started trying. We were very lucky and got pregnant very quickly, cue excitement/panic/morning sickness/shortness of breath/bad backache/reading a lot of forums on the internet (not advisable)/organising my booking appointment/a lot of worrying! The bad sickness hit me around 7/8 weeks pregnant and didn't leave until around 15 weeks, not pleasant but so worth it now I can feel her move around and I'm 30 weeks pregnant!

After we arrived back from our honeymoon we knew we had to start the house search again, as we had been looking for a house to buy for over 2 years and been failing. The first house we saw in September 2014 was the one we ended up buying! We feel in love with in, despite it being a project (you can now follow our progress hereon my blog), we could see the incredible potential. So exciting! We dreamt about creating the perfect home for our soon to be family of three but the time limit of our baby arriving in April meant that we had to start on the work straight away. 

We feel so incredibly lucky to have had such a busy, exciting and life changing year in 2014 and now can't wait to see the challenges, memories and joy 2015 brings us. 

I hope 2015 is a good year for you all too! 

Have you ever had a period of time in your life that is just so busy?

Feel free to leave me a comment :) 

Helen x

HOUSE: The Process of Decorating our Bedroom

As I've previously mentioned I decided to put myself in charge of decorating our bedroom, as I was pretty much useless in the other rooms. It's been so much fun learning basic decorating skills, tips and tricks, mainly from my Dad but YouTube videos and the internet in general have been very helpful too.

When we first looked at the room that would become our bedroom we looked at the standard of the wallpaper, woodwork, fireplace and floorboards (as we're having exposed floorboards). Looking at the whole room is so important because it helps you identify the work that will need to be done. Luckily, in our bedroom the wallpaper was good enough to just paint over. There were a couple of joins where the wallpaper had started to peel away, so I used an adhesive to basically glue the wallpaper back down. It was easy to do and saved having to peel all the wallpaper off and then putting lining paper back up. There was a very dark purple colour on the chimney breast and one wall, which needed to be painted over with a Pure Brilliant White paint first. Otherwise when we went to paint our chosen colour on top the purple would have still shown through. 

As for the colour scheme in our bedroom, we have decided to go for grey. The chimney breast is a dark grey and the walls a very light grey. Don't underestimate the tough job of finding and liking paint - we have bought so many tester pots its ridiculous! We settled on B&Q Colours Silk Emulsion Paint in Grey Slate 2.5l £14 for the chimney breast and Wickes Vinyl Silk Emulsion Paint in Powder Grey 2.5l (£15.99) for the rest of the walls. For the skirting borders, door surrounds and fireplace mantelpiece we opted for Pure Brilliant White Gloss Paint for Wood and Metal - a lot of brands do this product.

The first job was to sand down all of the woodwork in the room: door frames, skirting boards, window (as we decided to paint it white), fireplace and the loft entrance. It was a tough job - I have the weakest arms but skill wise it was very easy. This breaks the seal of the paint already on these areas and means that there's a rough surface for the new paint to stick to. Or so I'm told. I then brushed down these areas to make sure there wasn't any residue left and painted the wood undercoat paint on. It's an almost white colour and prepares the wood ready for the gloss paint to be applied. I'd highly recommend using a small brush for this, as I battled on with a much too big one for so long and then 'treated myself' to a small decorating brush from Wickes (this one to be precise). It made the job so much easier!

Next I started painting the walls (I had already painted the chimney breast and dark purple wall with a pure brilliant white matt emulsion paint) with the Powder Grey paint. Using a paint brush I painted around the light switch, skirting boards, edge of the walls and the ceiling with the paint first. Then, using a roller I rolled on the paint to the rest of the wall. I used the Professional Roller & Tray Set 230mm from Wickes (£3.99), as I was advised to use a medium pile length roller (the hairs on the roller are medium length, as you can get long and short too but they're for different jobs). Rolling on the paint means you get a beautiful finish and its so much quicker too! After painting one coat and letting it completely dry, I painted a second layer. Very easy to do but quite time consuming. I did the same thing with the dark grey paint on the chimney breast too.

After that, I painted the woodwork with the white gloss paint and made sure I was really careful with where I was painting as I had now painted the walls. Other than painting the skirting boards making my acid reflux in pregnancy even worse, I really enjoyed painting our bedroom. I am a true amateur and it's so satisfying seeing your hard work take shape.

Tom has now painted the ceiling, with a matt pure brilliant white paint, and we are currently preparing the floorboards to be painted grey too. I went around with a scraper, scraping up any dried drips of paint/old paint and started the sand the floorboards down. We will then make sure that there is no residue left on the floorboards before painting the undercoat primer for wood on. The paint we have chosen for the floorboards is the Ronseal Diamond Hard Floor Paint in Slate. It says its very hard wearing, so hopefully it will stand the test of time!

That's where I'm up to with the bedroom at the moment. I'm really looking forward to putting our new furniture and home accessories in to the bedroom now - starting to make it look more like a bedroom than a decorating site.

Do you enjoy decorating rooms in your house? 

Feel free to leave me a comment :)

Helen x 

HOUSE: The renovation project begins...

^The day we got the keys we started taking the wallpaper off in the bathroom.^

You may have read on my blog that we recently bought a house, that is very much a project. We have an obvious time restriction - our baby girl due in April 2015, so we have had to speed through as many rooms as we possibly can.

Now our DIY skills are seriously limited when faced with an old house full of cracks, various textured wallpapers, in need of a new bathroom and kitchen, plaster falling off left, right and centre, not to mention the overgrown front/back garden. The fact the house as built in the 1800's doesn't help either, although we wanted and love older houses they come with their fair share of 'issues'. As we are very quickly learning! 

Luckily, both of our Dad's are very skilled in the DIY area, my Dad has always had old houses and enjoyed renovating them. We are very much at the beginning of the renovation project, with the kitchen and bathroom completely stripped out and other than our bedroom we haven't even touched any of the other rooms. Being pregnant and my lack of skills meant that I wasn't really any help in the bathroom or kitchen (those rooms need the most work), so I put myself in charge of our bedroom. I have tried my best to document the process, which I will be sharing on my blog as we progress closer to creating a home rather than a shell of a house!

^After we ripped out the old kitchen.^


Does the idea of taking on a 'project' house excite you or terrify you?


Feel free to leave me a comment :)


Helen x

Who doesn't want a pretty home?

I met my boyfriend at university up in Durham about 5 years ago now, we were just friends for a couple of years and then decided to risk our friendship and make 'THAT' change into a relationship. Luckily it worked out and we've now been going out for nearly 3 years! But after 10 month's of being in a relationship our degree came to an end and there came a massive decision, do we move in together or not?! It wasn't actually a hard decision for us, we knew we wanted to live together, so we started looking for a house we could rent. The first house we looked at we fell in love with and took the plunge to sign a 12 month contract! Then it dawned on us, we have to pay for everything to go into the house, rent and bills!

During the summer after our last year at university we searched, shopped and made a lot of the main furniture - wardrobe, bed, sofa, book shelf, chest of drawers etc. I never wanted to see another flat pack after that summer, we practically lived in IKEA. Having said that, it was such an exciting time, creating a home together is such a magical experience! But when funds ran low we stopped buying things and now almost 2 years later we still haven't 'finished' any of the rooms.

Currently we are very lucky to be looking to buy a house but haven't found a suitable house yet. I am so excited to have a bigger kitchen (my biggest priority!) because the kitchen at our house now is very small, with barely any cupboards or surface space. Searching for a house that we can decorate, style and change is very exciting and prompted me to search for pretty house accessories. Also, as it's my birthday on Sunday so I wanted to find some things for the house I could ask for my birthday :)

I thought I'd share with you some of the cute, pretty and shabby chic house accessories I've found....

H&M Bakery Cake Tin - £7.99



dotcomgiftshop.com Bontanical Non-Slip Doormat £19.95



H&M Tea Towel £2.99

  

melodymaison.co.uk Cream Post Rack £9.95



melodymaison.co.uk Postcard Cushion £12.95



melodymaison.co.uk Set of 3 Vintage Floral Suitcases £23.95

 

amazon.co.uk Gisela Graham Wooden Recipe Book Stand Holder £10.80





spottybutton.co.uk Patchwork Bunting Cushion £9.95

This final item is my biggest dream at the moment, I really want a KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer in Ice Blue! Problem is, they are edging on £450 - very expensive! But they are such an iconic kitchen accessory, I love the way they look and as I do a lot of baking it would be so useful too! How pretty is it?!

John Lewis £429.95



What do you think?

Do you like decorating your bedroom/home?