Our home: The living room

We recently bought of very first home and are currently undertaking a full house renovation. It's such an exciting yet stressful time. As so much needed doing we just got stuck into everything. There was no time to do a room at a time we just needed to leap into it head first. We have a long list of jobs to do and every time we complete one job another couple are discovered and added to it.

Today I thought I would write all about the progress with our living room. For some reason I don't seem to appear to have any "before" photo's on hand just images from when we began. I have some somewhere though. 

The room was decorated with wood chip and painted yellow to begin with and it wasn't that bad. But as we are going to be redecorating every room we decided to do it anyway. 

Some area's the wood chip came off really easy but in some places it was really tough. It took us a good two days to get it all off. When we were stripping wallpaper off in different parts of the house we discovered bad walls underneath (cracks, holes, uneven plastering etc) but thankfully the living room walls were in an ok condition. One thing I have learnt is that with an old house you have to expect bad walls amongst other things. Still give me an old house over a new any day!

After we had tidied up I used sugar water to clean all the woodwork and fireplace. We have original wood features and coving which I love, it gives the house real character. I then sanded all the skirting boards and window ready for painting at a further date. Nick's Grandad then papered the entire room with lining paper, also ready for painting! 

We decided to paint the front room in Natural Hessian from Dulux. It was a shade we kept going back to as it was neutral and light but warm too. It will also look good against any colour so we could frequently change the colour accents in the room without having to redecorate the whole room again. 

We chose to paint the ceiling Natural Hessian too so the coving would really stand out as they were painted white. All the woodwork was sanded, painted with an undercoat and then glossed.

We had the radiator and new electrical sockets installed while we were painting the room. Once everything was dried we then went out looking at carpet. I wanted a neutral carpet that was light enough to compliment the wallpaper but was practical too. I would of loved to of gone for a nice cream carpet but that isn't feasable with a baby and three cats. We opted for a light sandy colour and I think it's perfect.

I am so happy with the living room because although the rest of the house is a shambles this room is almost complete and exactly how I wanted it. We just need a piece of skirting board and need to remove the old sockets and then we are done. I intend on having cabinets in the alcoves with floating shelves above them. Nick wants to put the TV on the wall too which frightens me but we are limited with space in the front room so we will have to do so. 

Now that one room looks finished it makes me so excited to see how the rest of the house is going to turn out. We have a long road ahead of us but we have certainly made a good start. 

Our home: Paints, paints and more paints

Oh my gosh, if I look at one more colour swatch I think I may just explode! The amount of hours I have spent looking at hundreds of different paint colours is simply ridiculous. I find myself looking at them and they all just blend into one giant splodge. I am a terribly indecisive person at the best of times but when it comes to trying to decide of paint colours for 7 rooms; living room, dining room, kitchen, hallway, bedroom, nursery, bathroom.. I feel totally out of my depth. If it was simply deciding on one paint for one room then it would be fine but I need to pick 6 or 7 colours that compliment one another, are neutral but not boring, aren't too light or too dark and so on and so forth. 

This week we bought half a dozen testers from Homebase to try out the colours for ourselves. We have rolls and rolls of lining paper at the house so I cut a bit off and painted it with each tester. I wrote the name above each shade to avoid any confusion. I also wrote down my initial feelings for each paint below each sample but I have changed my mind a little since then. 

I wish we had done this sooner cause paint colours look so much different in a catologue or on your computer screen. The colours also change dramatically when drying, some go lighter and some actually go darker, which was surprising. It was a good idea painting them onto the base they will actually be painted on once we choose as we can really see what the colour will be like. I also took the sample paper into every room in the house, in all the different lights to see how they would look. 

Here is what I am thinking at the moment:

Living room - Mellow Mocha

Dining room / Lounge - Natural Hessian
Kitchen - Caramel Latte (Not sure yet)
Hallway, Stairs and Landing - Natural Hessian
Bedroom - Dusted Fondant (Feature wall) with Mellow Mocha
Noah's Nursery - Natural Calico or Natural Hessian
Bathroom - No paint as room will be fully tiled
Box room - Whichever paint we have left

As you can tell I am a huge fan of neutral tones and going to add pops of colour here and there with accents such as picture frames, lamps, vases, rugs and so on. I'm really excited to get all the renovations out the way, have everything painted and then I can have fun furnishing each room.

This is the plan for now but I am not 100% on the kitchen colour. Our kitchen has cream cabinets, oak work surface and will have white tiles so I need a colour that's darker than cream but is not too dark. It's really tricky. I want to go for a shabby chic/cottage feel in the kitchen and dining room so need a shade that is suitable. I wish I was brave enough to go for a lovely pastel colour or even a nice sage green, but I'm not, so I am sticking to my trusty neutrals. 

Do you have any favourite paint colours or any advice on what colour to paint the kitchen? 

Our home: Two weeks on

We've had the house for just over two weeks (going up to three weeks now) we are still up to our elbows in it. Considering how many jobs we have to do we have done really well but at the minute our home resembles a derelict house as every room needed gutting. It's difficult to see past the holes in the floorboards, the smashed tiles on the floor and the totally bare walls but I know we are getting there. I like to think that seeing out home at it's worst will make us appreciate it so much more when it's done. 

Nick booked the week off work so we had the time to get really stuck in. My Mum also booked some time off work so then she could watch Noah while we went down to the house. There's only so much Nick and I can do without supervision and direction from Nick's Step Dad and Grandad but we did what we could. That being said nothing and I mean nothing went to plan this week. First off my cat hurt himself and we had to take him to the vets. It turned out he had dislocated and fractured his leg and needed surgery. It's suspected that a car hit him, the poor thing. Thankfully we have pet insurance and the operation went well but we spent an entire day making sure the cat was okay. It was then my birthday so we had a day off from the renovations and so on. Everything just went against us this week. Things that were supposed to be straight forward and easy were just hardwork and difficult. It was just one thing after another which was far from ideal as time isn't on our side. We are supposed to be moving in at the end of the month! 

Amongst the ongoing jobs we have already begun we decided to throw another in the works this week, we started ripping out the bathroom. We went in with a hammer in hand and began smashing all the tiles off the wall. They came off really easy but to our dismay there was another layer on tiles underneath. The under layer of tiles are so hard to get off too. Not only this but whilst removing some tiles it pulled the plaster down with them so we also have a wall that needs re-plastering too! Nightmare! See what I mean about things going wrong?

The bath, sink and toilet were ripped out the following day. The bath was cast iron and so heavy that it had to be sawed into pieces before it could be taken downstairs. I was shocked that it hadn't fallen through the floorboards, it was that heavy! The lino was also removed and stunk of urine. It actually makes me gag going in there cause now everything has been taken out all the odors seem to have seeped out with them. This renovation malarkey isn't very glamorous! We just need to get in now and remove the remaining tiles and the bathroom will be ready for decorating and it's new bathroom suite! I want to go for natural sandy coloured tiling and hopefully we will have enough money to tile the entire room.

Not only that but the kitchen has come on a lot this week. All the cabinets and cupboards are in place, the work surface is cut and secured, the fridge is in. Next up they are attaching all the doors and handles. I can't wait to see that. The kitchen is the most completed room in the house and it's good to finally be able to envision what it's going to look like.

More rooms have been steamed and stipped too, there's not much to do on that front now. Some rooms have been papered with lining paper ready for painting. The rooms can't be fully done yet as the central heating needs to be installed first. 

The rewiring of the house was continued this week too. I think we are almost finished with that. I don't understand it all to be honest. I just leave the electrician/Brother in law to it. 

We bought our new energy saving boiler and central heating system and that is all ready to be installed this week. It will be strange seeing the house with radiators. I can't believe the old chap who lived here before us never had heating! 

The photo's don't do any of the labour any justice.  For example, you see a photo of ugly wallpaper, then it removed, then lining paper up and it looks pretty straight forward. Behind the scene's that's not the case. Sometimes the paper is really hard to get off, sometimes it's easy. You are using a steamer which turns the room you are in into a foisty sauna where you sweat silly. You scrape off a tricky piece of wallpaper to find a hole in the wall. If not that then you pull off some wallpaper and it pulls plaster off with it. You find a crack that need to be filled and evened out with filler. You find damp. It's endless. A job that should be straight forward and looks straight forward never is. It's tiring but we get so much help and we are so thankful for it. 

It's scary to think we are supposed to be moving in next week! That won't be happening! The thought makes me feel rather deflated but I have to take a step back, take another look and realise how much work has been done. Although we have a while left to go we have made a really good start.

Our home: One week on

Well where do I begin! We've now had the house for 10 days and almost every day we have been down there working on something or other. It's been none stop! We have so much work to do in so little time, there's no time for dawdling. 

The house looks derelict and absolutely awful at the minute as every room is in the process of being gutted. I like to think that seeing the house right now at it's worst will make us appreciate it so much more once it's done. We move in at the end of this month and although we don't expect all the work to be done it would be good to have the majority of it out of the way before we do. I don't want the house to be a building site once we are in there, it would be a nightmare with the baby! 

Going into this we had a huge list of jobs that needed to be done and to look at it was so daunting. We have made a good start on everything but the minute you tick one job off the list a new job appears. For example we will take some wallpaper off to discover a hole in the wall! Still we would rather see these things now before we redecorate and move in, that would be another nightmare. 

So here is what we've been up to so far:

I have mainly been steaming and stripping wallpaper. Nick's Mum has come to help on a couple of days which has been great! So far we've done our bedroom, the nursery, the hallway, half the landing and the front room. Which leaves us with the kitchen, dining room, box room and bathroom to do as the entire house needs stripping and redecorating. We can't start on the bathroom until we have the old one ripped out and we can't really start decorating yet as we are still waiting for the central heating system to be installed. I have to say I am getting rather fed up of scraping wallpaper off but it needs to be done! I think I will throw a party when it's finally all off! 

Nick has been the laborer of sorts, helping out wherever he is needed. Stripping walls, clearing up, trips to the tip, odd jobs here and there. He is terrified of spiders and we keep frightening him by telling him we need him to go under the floorboards to sort out the wiring, ha ha. 

Nick's step dad has been a godsend. He's renovated dozens of houses in the past and is one of those people who can do everything! So far he has started the house rewiring, removed rotten floorboards and replaced them with new, damp proofed and plastered the kitchen and so much more. He is about to start fitting our kitchen too, which arrived today!

We've also had lots of help from Nick's Grandad too. We will turn up late on in the morning after we have sorted Noah and he will of already been there hours. He ripped out the old kitchen, he's been plastering and filling holes in the walls, blocking old fireplaces and countless other jobs. You wouldn't think he was coming upto 80 years old. We keep reminding him to take it easy but he loves it, he won't hear it. 

We are extremely lucky to have a lot of help from our family cause if we didn't have this help we wouldn't of gone for this house in the first place. If we hadn't of gone for this house then we wouldn't have our foot on the property ladder as there is literally nothing suitable for sale at the moment! I keep looking and I am so thankful we found this house and looked past all the renovating that needed to be done. It's going to be a lovely family home.

Check out our other home posts here;

We want our house
Renovating and decorating
Getting the keys
The work has begun