A cosy new home

As I mentioned in the last post, earlier this year we moved towns to be back closer to family after having the twins. Finding our next home wasn’t easy as the housing market was a mess but all we knew was we needed to move and asap. We booked a viewing for our now home on a bit of a whim - very much a ‘we probably won’t like it but we don’t have many other options’. We were actually looking for a 3 bed but settled for a 2 for location with the hopes to find our 3 bed forever home in the next couple of years. Anyway, it was a bit of a see it as a shell moment as the house was very much a bachelor pad, complete with fully functioning bar at the end of the garden, but we could definitely see it had potential and was actually really excited to get moved in and make it our own. Today I thought it might be nice to do a little ‘house tour’ with a few before and afters. Now, I’m no interior designer, but I definitely think we’ve managed to make a lovely cosy space to bring the kids up in for the foreseeable.

The Living Room - See what I mean about bachelor pad? Everywhere was quite dark and masculine, and I’m not sure if you can tell but the woodwork had also been painted grey… in every room. After an absolute nightmare of painting, pretty much on my own as no one else was a confident painter, we opted for a soft brown carpet (mainly for the comfort of the kids while they were still crawling and learning to walk) and the addition of lots of brown and cream toned extras like curtains and cushions. We brought the big furniture from our old house which luckily for us, actually suits this house a lot better. Clean and comfy, that’s all we need. 

The Kitchen - We haven’t actually done that much in here yet, and I’m not sure if we will before we look at moving again as it’s all fairly new. We opted for silver appliances as we felt black was too harsh and white looked weird against the cream. Then for the smaller appliances we got a cream colour which matches really nicely. Some nice plants on the windowsill (and a vase of flowers if I’m lucky) and then we just swapped the blind for a cream one as, again, we felt the black was a bit too harsh. We gave the walls a lick of paint (and I was very grateful to have some help from our best man in this room) but I’m not too sure it picks up on the before and afters - the walls were previously white so I opted for a bit more of a beige-y colour to keep a nice flow through the house. 

The Bathroom - The biggest change in the whole house and boy, did it need it. I’m not actually sure if it picks up in the before picture but the old bathroom was absolutely disgusting. It was very old (a few previous owners old) and we quickly found out in the first 24 hours that the shower tray didn’t drain so it flood unless you had the water running to a trickle. Absolute joke. I actually wore ‘shower flip flops’ for 3 weeks until the new bathroom got fitted it was that bad. Anyway, we had a full rip out and refit. We opted for a freestanding shower and a bath as with toddlers a bath is essential. We chose a herringbone flooring and opted for tile effect cladding on the walls. We’re super happy with how it turned out and hopefully, when it comes to selling, having a new bathroom will work in our favour.

The Bedroom - Another navy and grey masculine room transformed to a cosy neutral space. I painted this whole room on my own in 2 days while our bathroom was being redone. This was the last room to be finished as I was flagging by this point and feeling very much, ‘as long as the rest of the house is ready for the babies, our bedroom is just for sleeping’. I pulled my finger out in the end though and got it done. We had the radiator moved from the internal wall to by the window and again covered the wooden flooring with a cosy carpet. We also transformed the alcoves into some free hanging wardrobe spaces which I was sceptical about at first but I actually love the vibe it gives.

The Nursery - One of the most important rooms to get right and I think we just about managed it. This was previously an office complete with ‘landlord special’ carpets and an air conditioning unit with a massive pipe in the corner of the room. this rooms wasn’t actually that hard to get right as, once we had ripped out the carpet and had the radiator moved from the internal room, the painting wasn’t actually that bad. This room isn’t actually that different from their old nursery as we like to try and keep it quite neutral for them until they can have their own bedrooms but again, I’m very happy with how it turned out. 

So there we have the before and afters. Minus the garden which we only have a before of currently as we haven’t really done much to it. What I will say is that the grass looks a lot better than in this pic as we’ve seeded the lawn and gotten rid of the dog wee patches (we don’t have a dog). Sneak peak of the bar at the end of it though!! 

It really was a labour of love and I would say it took a solid 4 weeks of work to get it fresh for us. What I haven’t mentioned yet is that we actually also had every window and external door in house replaced plus blinds fitted in every room as the windows are lovely and big we wanted the option of a little privacy. We are quite lucky now in the fact, because we did it all as we moved in, there isn’t that much that needs doing/isn’t fresh so we can just enjoy it now until it’s time to look at moving. For now though, we are very happy in our lovely new home and I’m so incredibly grateful that we were in a position to move back closer to family when we needed it most.