Our home: Home decor haul

With most of the house renovations now out of the way I've finally been able to focus more on home decor. This means one thing... shopping! To be honest I'm not usually a 'shop to you drop' kind of gal but shopping for home decor is the only exception, I love it!

Here are some of the pieces that we have bought recently;

Night light from Rose & Grey. I recently won a £50 voucher to spend at the fabulous Rose & Grey and decided to spend it on Noah. I bought him this super cute night light and a little wooden chair for his bedroom.

Shabby chic inspired vase from Feather & Black. Not sure where this is going to go yet but I adore it.

Scented candle from B&M. I'm a secret candle hoarder and my Mum recently bought me this candle as a little house warming gift. Isn't it lovely?

Vintage look wall clock from Morrisons. I actually bought this a while back but it's only just gone up on the wall so it feels new! I think it suits my kitchen perfectly.

Kitchen sign from B&M. Can you believe this sign was just £1?! Another addition to our kitchen decor. 

This haul is all from B&M and all for under £50. The cushions and lamps have gone up into our bedroom while the rug and laundry basket (temporary toy box) is in our living room. 

As you can tell from by buys I shop everywhere for decor pieces. From bargain stores, to supermarkets and online boutiques. It really pays to shop around for the best price and don't settle for the first thing you set eyes on.

Where are your favourite places to shop for homeware? 

- I was not sent any of these products for review or reimbursed for featuring any stores mentioned. 

Our home: We have finally moved in!

Wow, what a journey. 

It feels like a lifetime ago that I wrote all about buying our first home back in January. It took 4 months for the sellers to finally agree to terms and for them to sign the contract. It was torturous waiting because it wasn't a case of buy the house and move in the house. No, buying the house was the first step because we knew how much work needed to be done before we could even think about moving in. 

Once we finally signed on the dotted line it was time for the "fun" to begin, the renovating (I would be happy to never hear or say that word ever again!) We were a little naive when it came to the work because we thought we would be in the house within 2 months. We totally underestimated not just how long it would take but the scale of how much work had to be done. It took 5 whole months of renovating, decorating and DIY until we actually moved in. 

So after all these months and all the hard work here we are finally in our new home! All the major jobs are done and dusted but there are still some little jobs that need to be done. We are so close to everything being completed now and it feels so good to be almost at the finish line. 

We haven't fully unpacked yet and haven't dressed the house but we are certainly settled in. We get a lovely vibe from the house and love it here already. It feels incredible to be home owners and now have a place we can call our own. I can see us having many happy times here. 

Our home - Recent buys

With the house renovation currently in slow motion I have felt like a spare part. As I mentioned in my last post it still doesn't seem real that we have bought a house and I can't imagine us living there. Maybe because it's still so bare and it feels like we've been working on it for forever? I don't know, it's hard to describe. I know that once we are in there, making memories it will quickly start feeling like home.

Having idle hands I've turned to shopping and I've been buying little bits and pieces for our new home. I am scrolling through eBay and local buy and sell pages every night trying to spot some last minute bargains. I have bought a few pieces of furniture on eBay which I intend to repaint, upcycle and blog about soon.

But for now here are some of my recent home decor buys-

Heart alarm clock - B&M bargains - £2.99

Family Rules sign - The Range - £15

Shabby chic frame - B&M Bargain - £9.99

I love all three and as they were all so cheap I could justify the spend. The clock and the picture frame are both going into our bedroom but I am still undecided about where to put the sign. 

What do you think of my recent buys? Where is your favourite store for home decor? 

Our home: The kitchen so far

One of the first major jobs on our renovation list was to start on the kitchen. The old kitchen needed to be ripped out and gutted. All the cabinets, the tiles, the floor. You name it, it getting taken out! So the day after we got the keys we were straight in there. We needed a blank canvas for the new kitchen that we ordered just a few days later. 

This was the kitchen the day we go the keys. Very dated. So dated in fact it was last done in 1973, we found the kitchens receipt in the back of one of the cabinets. 

The day after we got the keys everything was gutted. All the cabinets and cupboards were ripped out, dismantled and taken to the tip. The tiles were hammered off the wall. All the waste was swept up and thrown away. Kitchen floor was taken up. 

After everything was thrown out we finally see the kitchen's bare bones, stripped back to bare bricks. They found a bit of damp at the back of the cabinets so all the plaster needed to come off the walls. 

The back wall was then damp proofed and plaster board went up. 

The back wall was then plastered and Noah came to have a look at his house's progress, he was having a good nosey around. We were waking around the house with him and I lost my balance, nearly tripped and he started laughing his head off at me. He was so happy and smiley whilst we were having a look around. He must know that this is his new home, the house he is going to grow up in. 

There was an electric fire in the kitchen as the house has never had central heating. We didn't need that fire so it was taken out, sold and Grandad began closing it up. It was sealed with breeze block's then plastered but with a vent as air needs to circulate.

The other side of the kitchen. It's a very long kitchen and not that narrow either but on pictures it seems to look smaller.

Our new kitchen arrived today. We unpacked it all, attached the legs and set the frames up to where they are going to go which will make the fitting of the kitchen flow much more smoothly. 

Hopefully by the end of the week our new kitchen will be fitted and we can begin painting, tiling and flooring the room! I'm so excited, I can't wait to see the end result!

Our home: The work has begun

If you follow the blog you will know that this year we made an offer on our first house. After a week or two of negotiations they accepted our offer and we were over the moon. Little did we know that it would take a long, drawn out three months until we signed on the dotted line and finally got our hands on the keys! 

We got the keys last Friday and it's been none stop ever since. I started on the master bedroom, stripping the wall paper. Whilst Nick, his Step Dad and Granddad ripped the kitchen out and begun the rewiring of the house. I would be upstairs taking off the wallpaper and pop downstairs to refill my wallpaper steamer nd there would be a hole in the floorboard or something new ripped out. We are so lucky to have so much help with the house as we wouldn't of been able to do it without Nick's family. It's incredible to see how much we have got done in such a short amount of time.

We have a month left in this rented house before we move into our new home. Time isn't on our side so we need to get as much of the work out of the way as we possibly can. This would be pretty straight forward if we only had the odd job to do but we literally have to gut the entire house; central heating, rewiring, new kitchen, new bathroom, new windows, plastering, every room needs redecorated and more. There is so much to do with so little money. It's hard to budget too cause every day a new job or repair seems to pop up and rear it's ugly head! But it's better to spot them now before we fully redecorate and move in, that would be a nightmare. 

So as it stands the house currently looks like a bombs hit and you really have to watch where you are walking with the multiple holes in the ground. Once all these big jobs are out of the way the real fun begins, the decorating! We can't wait to make this house into our home. 

Our home: Getting the keys

It's taken a good 3 months but we finally have good news! Tomorrow we are going to sign on the dotted line for our first home, we should leave with the keys! It doesn't seem real! 

We went to have a last look around the property this evening as it's been such a long time since we viewed it last. I forgot how big the house is. I think it will take a while to get used to the space considering we are living in such a small rented bungalow at the minute. It's going to be bliss having so much room and to not feel so confined anymore. 

Having a look at everything again tonight makes everything seem so much more real. The whole house and renovation project (which I blogged about here) is so daunting as there is a lot of work that needs to be done. Once we are in there and start the work we can tick off jobs as we go. Hopefully breaking it all down will make the whole project less frightening.  

We didn't waste any time and had the kitchen measured up tonight and my partners step Dad has already designed us a kitchen. Which means we have to make a final decision on which style we want to go for as we are getting the kitchen priced up tomorrow. I know I want a cream kitchen with wood works surfaces and I seem to sway towards the shaker style.  

After the months of waiting everything seems to be happening really quickly now. Lots of big decisions need to be made and quickly. Which is usually hard enough but being such an indecisive person like me makes it ten times worse. 

With so many jobs that need to be done on a limited budget, do you have any tips on making our money go further. Or any renovation or DIY tips you would like to share?