Home DIY | Kitchen Reno Inspiration

Image Sources: Grey units, white kitchen tops, Subway tiles, wood floor, embedded sink, purple accents.

On Sunday we finally saw some sunlight and strangely I missed our flat. Not because I’m ungrateful for my house but because there is a great simplicity to renting a new-ish build to renting in general and having a property which is all complete.

Sunlight in our doer upper means seeing the things that need doing. Theres less dark evenings to hide the fact that our original seventies kitchen desperately needs another steam cleaning and although we have no intention in overhauling our kitchen just yet, theres no harm in making plans. Right?

Grey Units

I have a post for the future regarding my worries about embracing trends too closely in the home and although grey has been this massive trend in the last few years we have felt that grey units straddle the gap between minimalist white (which will show all the dirt) and darker, more traditional wood units. We are also infatuated with curved lines and a gloss finish for a modern and glamorous look which seems to reign supreme in our home so far.

White, sparkle flecked granite

As a child when my parents would take a trip to John Lewis in Welwyn Garden City I first saw this type of granite and obviously, I fell in love. I am a magpie and I’m not afraid to shout about it! I also however realise that this might be out of budget for us but a girl can dream and if I had good funds this would be it. If not I also love a basic white or even a wood top.

Subway tiles

In the bathroom we plan to have as few lines and edges as possible simply because a fluffing towel gets everywhere and who wants to be continually cleaning? In the kitchen we had the same idea but there is something about these tiles that I am just drawn to. If we went differently I also like the more basic plastic gloss splash backs. We are all about easy to clean nowadays.

Dark wood floors

We currently have basic beech, click together wood flooring in the living room and what I would ideally like it to darken it all and have the whole of the downstairs matching. I also feel like the darker wood is a little more unexpected.

An embedded sink

In the future house of our dreams a white, farmhouse sink will be ideal but for this house it just doesn’t suit. Obviously you have stainless steel sinks but again who doesn’t have one of those? I still like the white porcelain however and these new ones embedded beneath the work surface look great.

Purple accents

You might be surprised to learn that the Kitchen is actually Joshes domain. We operate the system that the first person home does the cooking and because my work hours stretch longer into the night Josh has been chief cook in our house for quite a while.

As Josh spends the most time in the kitchen I’ve given him the reigns predominately on what he fancies in this part of the house. Josh first spotted gloss cabinets, choose the grey colour and who also wanted Cadbury purple accents.

We will have some untiled – un covered walls in our kitchen so we intend for these to be painted purple and with a kettle already in metallic purple we are well on our way to the kitchen of our dreams!

Home Décor | Lessons in home ownership and not falling prey to Pinterest

(A blue so dark its black at night. I’ve paired this with so many patterns that it can make your head spin when falling into bed with a too big glass of wine firmly planted in your belly.)

Whether you’re renting, own a property or heavens, even live with your folks how do you think about buying furniture and designing a room?

I have heard so often and from so many people about how you should buy your larger pieces in neutral colours that I’m beginning to think that the whole world operates in monochrome. We are told daily, don’t buy that bright pink velvet chair unless you’ve got cash to burn. If I won the lottery I would . . . sort of thinking. Let me burst the bubble; you don’t have to play it safe.

During the house hunting process I had boards and boards of Pinterest with ‘minimalist’ design. I am talking full on grey as an accent colour style minimalism. It was fun, it was very capsule wardrobe obsession led but ultimately when I looked around at our existing furniture I realised, this dream of living the simple life was so not fun and so not going to happen!

In between these times I found, Abigail Ahearn and I quite frankly fell in love. She is this bold, experimental, love her colour, paint all your rooms dark designer and I fell really hard with her book, colour.

Within an hour I was thinking about bronze leaf kitchens, wood cladded hallways like a men’s smoking room and painting everything a dark moody blue. Suddenly I felt so revived that I went home to re-fall in love with our dark red leather couch. I re understood why I laid on our red and orange floral stool from my mums store in the middle of the showroom one afternoon. Quite frankly everything made sense in my world again.

(A floral velvet Chair from TK. I stood in the Wandsworth branch for a full ten minutes drooling. Wondering, how I could convince Josh that the £300 price tag was an investment and moreso how he should for sure detour from Maidenhead to Wandsworth to drive us, (me and the chair) back to our home in Kent that evening. Ultimately, I realised this wasn’t going to fly. Especially after six snapchats from different angles went ignored. Thats not to say I’m not still waiting, thinking that he might re stumble across these and shout, lets go! Need that chair! He won’t however, sad.)

I had gotten so tied into this idea that a Scandinavian home would make me happy. I forgot that this home is not for Instagram. It’s for us and we like to be brave with our choices. I’m not afraid of making our long galley living room feel smaller by painting the room aubergine and bronze. Just think how wonderful that colour is going to feel in winter when we are watching The Flash or Arrow buried under our mountain of pillows and the long haired faux fur throw that I have yet to purchase.

Suddenly it makes sense. A narrow, armless futon in a rough grey fabric will never make me happy, so we paint our house in all the colours. We look forward to not thinking about paying out for a wedding so we can buy occasional chairs in crazy coloured florals even when it doesn’t match the rest.

This by the way is home bravery and if you didn’t catch it, this is happiness.

(Zebra rug, probably for a childs bedroom. It looks far better under my dining table.)

Decor | First Home and Painting Hanging

Did you know that hanging paintings is far harder than it looks? I didn’t. It probably should have been obvious but after standing together for over two hours frustrated with three small canvas’s determined to hang in different directions I’m beginning to think I probably won’t hang paintings like this again, ever.

In case you do feel the urge this is what I would suggest.

• If hanging them with your partner tell each other before, “I love you, but during this process I might not love you as much . . . “
• Measure, measure, measure
• Two sets of hands are better than one
• Don’t let a hammer bounce off the back of the bed where it was balancing onto the exposed bed slates and let it go bouncing across the floor.
• Wear shoes

I initially photographed this thinking a how to! Yes! How hard can it be? Upon reflection I don’t think my method was flawless enough to emulate but the lessons and revelations I took from it? Priceless.

Christmas | The Tree

The best bit about Christmas? The decorating.

My favourite part of Christmas is never presents but always the feel of the festive season and time with mine and Joshes family. However if you were to ever ask my mum (please don’t) she’ll tell you all about my obsession with the christmas tree as a child. Although I don’t spend hours in front of it as I once did there is something so magical about seeing your own christmas tree in your first house. So here it is! Happy Christmas everyone!

 

Dine and Celebrate | Friends Christmas

    A long time ago myself and Joshes friends discussed doing a friends Christmas. The rules were you had to turn up in your most fantastic Christmas jumper, exchange secret santas (where we have to guess who its from) and finally make dinner all together and just be chill and celebrate us and our fabulous life! Here are a few stand out moments and a few things I bought which I loved and thought were pretty cool!

Lessons in renovations | Never question another woman’s bedroom spice racks.

My bedside table currently

Lamp: Asda George Home, Various semi precious stones from holidays over the years, Marc Jacobs Splash! in Cranberry (discontinued), Place mat: Anthropologie (which no longer appear online), Bedside: Ikea

As we were moving and had several days minus furniture we were busy stripping the house back and painting. During this time there were several funny (and not so funny things) that happened to us which I had emailed to family members and friends. Because they had gone down a treat with them I figured it was only fair to share them again here, with you guys.

My short list of what we learnt whilst moving.

– Never question another women’s bedroom spice racks

– or the dog hair in her oven. ever.

– a steam cleaner is your best friend

– ripping up a carpet can make you £1 and 1 Shilling richer

– Its easy to fall in holes, even in your bedroom.

– Any excuse to pull up a carpet and I’ll find it.

– B&Q trips rarely cost less than a £100

– You’ll fix a toilet, find a leak and get confused by light switches all in a few hours

– & speaking of light switches we have two in our hall. One turns on the hall light, one the landing and the first one can also switch of the living room lights, and the second can turn the living room lights back on, but don’t ask us how to make what you want happen because we haven’t worked out the secret.

– If Josh decides to get a saw/screwdriver or another implement to help get something unstuck he’ll more than likely come back to find I’ve already yanked it out mercilessly and without finesse.

– I will also clean anything twice if it stands still long enough. Sorry Josh.

– we hadn’t planned to change the flooring in the kitchen but I picked up floor tiles so . .

– velvet, velvet everywhere . . .

– and finally don’t be too jealous when I tell you, we have a seat in our shower, and doors like a barn to get in. We’re living the life I tell you, the life . . . if the life also has iron burns in the carpet and enough patterns in the kitchen to find yourself questioning, did I take a wrong turn and walk into a yellow, kaleidoscope?

Stay tuned folks, this can only get better.