The Next Stage in our Renovation Plans

One of the main topics I've been writing about this past year has of course been our renovation. We bought our first home last May and to say it was a work in progress is one huge understatement. We knew it needed a lot of work but we didn't realise how much until we had bought the house and started the work. This is normal of course because once you start pulling off the wallpaper and tearing up the carpet that is when all the hidden jobs start rearing their ugly heads.

A year later and the renovation is complete. A new kitchen, a new bathroom, central heating system, new boiler, full electrical rewire, new ceilings, plastering, new carpets, every room newly decorated.. those are just some of the jobs that we accomplished in that first year. 

When I think about how long it all took and how much blood, sweat and tears went into it I wonder why I'm even thinking of saying this but we are now drawing up plans for phase two.

Phase two will start with us converting the attic and we want to do this for various reasons. The first and main reason is that it could give us one more large bedroom and a storage room or even two bedrooms. This of course is needed if we want to have more children in the future. Another reason is that it will increase the value of our house tremendously and if we want to sell up any time soon we could earn a lot of profit too. Once this is completed we will need to look into updating our home insurance policy and must remember to do so.

When the main frame work has been finished we will be looking at dormer windows and will need to invest in some electric radiators as attics are known to be a little draughty. 

I'm really looking forward to decorating the attic room once the building work has been completed. I picture a light and bright but welcoming space for two children to share. This thought of course is very dear to me as I know how much Noah would love to have a sibling in the future. I can just imagine two boys rough housing in there or Noah and a sister squabbling over what game to play next. 

Although the next stage of our renovation is only just being drawn up I'm already making plans for stage three! I realise I do sound a little crazy planning so far ahead but this is our forever home, the home where we are going to raise our children. It's got to be perfect. 

Our home: The master bedroom

Our bedroom is one of the rooms in the house that is totally finished now, minus a bit of furniture and decor. It's one of the rooms that I feel we spent ages on as it was the first room we began stripping and a room that we've dipped in and out of as our renovation progressed. 

It was probably one of the easier rooms to renovate too. We of course stripped the dated floral wallpaper and retro green carpet as soon as we bought the house. The room needed new plaster here and there but other than that the walls were fine. The ceiling was then lowered, plastered and spot lights were installed (something that I wasn't really bothered about but Nick prefers spot lights over one main light.) We also had new electrics and central heating installed as that was needed throughout the entire house. The new central heating and electrical rewiring was so expensive and cost almost half of our renovation budget. Which is very daunting when you still have a new bathroom, kitchen and a dozen other things yet to pay for! 

After all the big jobs were completed it was time for the fun part, the decorating. We first painted the ceiling white and it took a few coats as fresh plaster loves to soak up paint. Then we decorated the room with lining paper and painted with a Dulux shade called Mellow Mocha. It's a strange colour because in some light it can appear to have purple hue's and others it's the taupe type shade we were looking for. The light rail, skirting board, door, door frame, window frame, window sill then had a couple of layers of undercoat and gloss. 

With all the messy DIY and decorating jobs out of the way we then had to decide on a carpet. We decided to go for a silver grey (which is bang on trend according to our carpet fitter!) as I thought it would really compliment the colour and decor of the room. 

Here is our bedroom renovation journey from start to finish, enjoy! 

Our home: Kitchen update

Well well well. I didn't think that 3 months down the line we would still be in this predicament as we are still living with the inlaws whilst the house is being renovated. It's been a long time coming but we are slowly getting there and we are aiming to move in this weekend. 

The house is a long way off completion but the house should be "livable". We have had to make sure the big and dirty jobs are out the way before we do move in. We would of moved in already if it was just Nick and I but we simply refused to bring a baby into such a dusty and somewhat dangerous environment. It still doesn't feel like we've bought a house, that that house is our home but I am sure we will feel differently once we are in there.

It's been a while since I last updated you on our kitchen progress. In fact it's been almost three months since I wrote the The kitchen so far post. As soon as we got the keys to the house back in May we dashed in and threw ourselves straight into working on the kitchen. For the past few months bits and pieces have been done on the kitchen but it took a back seat as we started on every other room in the house too! There was literally so much to do so everyone just got stuck in here, there and everywhere. 

Now that the kitchen is almost complete I cannot keep in my appreciation for it. I'm so happy that the kitchen I envisioned and dreamed off is appearing before my very eyes. It's practical yet gorgeous too. I can't wait to be pottering about in the kitchen, cooking for my two boys!

What do you think of our kitchen so far? Is it to your taste?

Our home - The bathroom so far - part 2

We have gotten a lot further with our bathroom renovation since the last time I updated and I couldn't be happier. Everything seems to have taken shape all of a sudden and it's just how I envisioned our bathroom to look like. We are almost finished in the bathroom and just have the odd couple of jobs to do; grouting, more tiling, paint window frame, shower doors, tile around the bath, more grouting and the toilet and sink need to be installed. It's incredible to see what the bathroom looked like originally to what it looks like now. Here are the photo's of our progress-

Our home - The bedroom so far

Along with the bathroom one of the rooms we are really getting stuck into at the moment is the master bedroom. Although there is a lot of work still to do on the house once we have a working bathroom and kitchen, a living room and bedroom that is livable we can pretty much move in. The other jobs aren't major and can be done as we go. 

Here is our progress on the master bedroom -

As you can see the bedroom was very dated and decorated in a rather unattractive pea green. The previous home owner certainly had a thing for green as the bathroom was also in the exact same shade and they have even gone as far as painting some of the doors that colour too!

The bedroom was the first room I started on and it's one of those rooms we keep going back to when we couldn't go any further in another. First thing we did was strip the walls. The wallpaper came off very easily and underneath the walls were in an okay condition, thankfully. We also ripped up that awful green carpet too!

But you know how it goes. If everything ends up being straight forward and easy there is always a little hiccup. The hiccup in this room being the chimney breast. The wallpaper was really tough to get off on this area. It wasn't just wallpaper but it had been sealed with some sort of pink putty stuff which was so sticky and difficult to remove. It took us absolutely ages to remove the majority of the stuff and we ended up leaving it till another day. (A few weeks later the chimney breast was plastered over so we didn't even need to do it in the end!) 

The wallpaper on the ceiling came off incredibly easy to remove too. So easy infact that we didn't even need to use a steamer we literally just peeled it off in big chunks. We did have another one of those hiccups though as when pulling it down some of the ceilings plaster came down with it!

Rather than simply re plastered the ceiling we decided to have the ceiling dropped and re plastered so we could have spot lights installed. I wasn't really fussed about the lights as I do like a big feature chandelier or light shade but Nick loves the little spotlights so we went ahead.

The walls were lined with lining paper ready to be painted whilst the ceiling was plastered. This is when we really saw our bedroom coming together. 

We've decided to paint out ceiling and all woodwork white and the walls Mellow Mocha from Dulux. We are doing this at the moment so the next time I update on the bedroom it should be finished! Very exciting!