The Renovation Diaries #1

Something that my boyfriend and I are currently working towards is renovating our house. And it's something that I'm sure will take many, many years as let's face it renovations aren't cheap and take a lot of time but we've got to start somewhere. Over the next year or so I want to delve more into the world of interiors as well as sharing our progress on this blog as who doesn't love a good before and after shot of a room? So here are all the things that we're trying to do with our first house.

BATHROOM

The bathroom is a sorry state and definitely one of the worst rooms in the house by far. Everywhere else could be painted and they looked ok, not exactly what we want but whenever is a house exactly what you want? It needs ripping out entirely, everything is so dirty that it doesn't matter how much you clean and scrub away the dirt never lifts. So safe to say it needs to go and what we're planning is relatively simple. Of course, what kind of blogger would I be if I didn't want subway tiles with black grout? And as the walls are in pretty terrible condition it will give a smooth surface too. As well as roll top bath, which is my absolute dream and a simple sink unit with plenty of storage. The bathroom is always a place that I think I should be a calming place to be and our current set up is far from that.

LIVING ROOM

Thankfully, the living room isn't going to be somewhere that we need to invest thousands of pounds into but it still needs upscaling. It was painted white to cover up the gross deep purple and caramel colour it was and the white isn't looking great anymore. We're thinking of a light grey, in addition, to probably the most exciting part...recarpetting. The carpet is this rather vile purple, black, grey and white striped number which I can safely say is the only stripe I've ever met that I didn't like. And it's a shame it's in such a brash pattern because the carpet itself is in pretty good condition and it's super plush but it's got to go. As well as the walls and the carpet something else we want to change is our sofa, we want a sectional to fill up the room a little more.

PANTRY

We're super fortunate that we have a pantry in our house, granted the kitchen is very small so it's almost a necessity but it's not in good shape. The shelves are all slanted meaning putting anything on them is a risk but there is so much storage in there. So they need replacing as well as repainting and doing something with the floor as it's still got some terrible lino down. We also need to utilise the space a little more in terms of storage for appliances like the hoover etc as we currently have no storage space at all for them.

REMOVING WALLS

A big thing that we want to eventually do is knock down a wall downstairs to open up the space a little more. We technically use the 'dining room' at the back of the house for our living room but the largest room is at the front and we currently use it as a spare room. Which isn't very nice for guests to walk into as it's full of junk and where we dry the washing. So we either want to open up the back of the house a little more or create a living room/dining room. Something else that might be on the cards is to move the stairs, we live in a terrace and as of right now the stairs are in the middle of the house and we'd like them to be when you walk in to create a little more of an entryway instead of walking straight into the house.

TLC & LITTLE THINGS

And one of the biggest things is that we just need to show our house a little more love. I only moved in properly at the end of May so I'm very much still finding my feet with living alone for a lot of the time due to my boyfriend's job and then adjusting to living together when he's home. And there are so many little jobs that we need to do that will make a big difference but it's just finding the time to do it all. Here are some of the smaller things that we want to do;