Since buying our house a year ago one of the most asked questions we hear from our friends is "How's it going with the house??" to which we usually pull a bit of a face and reply "Sloooooowly". When we bought our house I don't think either of us really thought about how time consuming, exhausting and expensive it is making your home your own. We didn't exactly buy a wreck, we just bought a house that hadn't been updated for many many years and was full of beige carpets (still got those upstairs), horrific textured and floral wallpaper (still upstairs) and the ugliest gas fire that ever did exist (thankfully long gone).
Ok, i'm going to have to show you that fireplace so you can truly appreciate how far we've come...
See, I told you. Sometimes I have actual nightmares about it.
So anyway, back to the story. It wasn't as simple as strip the wallpaper and throw some colours at the walls as we first thought. Firstly, we had to get the whole house rewired. Not much fun but we luckily had wonderful electricians. Secondly, after stripping all the wallpaper in the lounge/diner we quickly realised that re-plastering though not essential, was a really good idea plus it meant bye bye artex ceiling. Neither of us knew that plasters equal carnage...
Note that we told him to use the beige carpet as a dust sheet to force us to rip it up quicker.
So once we were rewired, re-plastered, re-fireplaced it was then time to get the original floorboards restored (lovingly hand sanded by our awesome friend Jay) and THEN we got to throw colours at the walls....or painstakingly paint as neatly as we could anyway.
And then we had to make a whole lot of holes in those re-plastered walls, naturally...
That's Miffy taking her shoes off down there incase you were wondering. Hanging this gallery wall was terrifying at first but as soon as we committed to the first couple of pieces the rest was easy. Since the above photo was taken there's now a long narrow shelf in the top right gap which is awaiting some cacti to fill it (any excuse to buy more cacti).
Now the lounge is pretty much there we're turning our attention to finishing off the dining room. Our friend Jay is coming back in soon to build us some floating shelves in two of the alcoves and then we can FINALLY get all our books out of boxes (and reclaim the spare room at the same time!) Now the idea is to finish the studio and work our way around the rest of the house! Except now we can't stop thinking about smashing a few walls down, moving the bathroom upstairs....it's a slippery slope this home improvements malarky! Will update you again soon on our progress :o)
Have you ever done any drastic home improvements??
Have you been living in the house while it's all being done? I can imagine that's a nightmare with everything constantly being dusty! I haven't done it myself but I remember my parents doing it in our family home when I was younger while we all slept on camp beds. Well done for plodding on with it – it'll be so worth it – that yellow wall with all the prints alone looks amazing, I love it! x
ReplyDeleteYep both living and working here! To be fair, we've only fully decorated the lounge/diner so the only really disruptive bit was when the rewire was being done and there was floorboards up all over the house and lots of drilling/men shouting/loud radios blaring. But yeah, if we relocate the bathroom and extend the kitchen it's not going to be much fun for a while!! ;o)
DeleteIt is always so interesting to watch how a home renovation project unfolds and comes together. Each one is diffferent and unique in its own way with its own challenges. The dramatic change that was done with this fireplace was awesome! Everything looks so much brighter and cleaner with the pops of color and the art on the walls too.
ReplyDeletevery nice post
ReplyDeleteXyore Community