House Update & Interior Ideas

I have previously posted about myself and my partners new home we have purchased and had not visited it since September 2016. A few weeks ago we got a phone call to come in and see it on the inside for the first time, and since then we have been back recently!

I was so pleased with our most recent visit - everything is finally coming together. Our kitchen is in, but covered up, but from what we could see we made a good choice. We opted for a basic style of cream doors and wooden worktop, as when making our choices we also had to think if were to re-sell in the future what would be most desired. With the same thought process for bathroom tiles, we opted for grey in our en-suite bathroom and neutral/ beige shades for the family bathroom and downstairs loo.

With a new build there are extra options you can choose to have, to either upgrade the standard things you get with the house, or add extras (such as integrating the kitchen, flooring/carpets (yes, flooring is not included!) doors, chrome plugs, taps etc..). We knew from the outset that we did not really want to go to overboard with extras, if you have purchased a new build home you will know that these things come a costly price - most of the little things you could do yourself in the future for much, much less! We have chosen to add a cooker hood, heated towel rail in our en-suite, and we upgraded the bath in the family bathroom to have a shower over it. I could have easily chosen more options to upgrade, but it would have cost us a fortune!

Last weekend we got the dreaded IKEA trip over and done with (I am not a fan of IKEA due my hatred for people standing in the way and busy places!). We were in and out within an hour or so and had purchased everything we set out to get! Namely the dining chairs, dressing table, bed side tables for the spare room and storage units (mostly for my copious amounts of make up and toiletries). Dreading when the time comes to put all of our flat packed furniture together...

In regards to how I would like our home to look, I am very much pulled towards the neutral soft tones and lots of texture with pops of colour here and there. My Pinterest board definitely is a great help for me. In my mind I know what I want, which is always dangerous for me as I love the expensive things. I tend to find that I get an idea in my head, but cannot actually find anything like it out there in the homeware stores!

It's hard trying to decorate a house you don't live in yet, I am trying to visualize how I want it to look! I have started buying a few decorative items such as below - mainly bedding, curtains, pillows and ornaments - I cannot wait to see these actually in our home! I just keep praying that all will look well!

There are a few things I would like to buy once we have the keys/ moved in, such as a radiator cover for the radiator in the hallway, a console table for the hallway and I would like to paint the downstairs loo, our bedroom and the hallway. Can you tell I am most excited about our hallway?!

I am counting down the weeks now until towards the end of May, when fingers crossed we should get the call we have been waiting for!

Goals For April : 2017 Edition

Here we find ourselves again, at the beginning of a new month wondering where the start of the year has gone! This year (to me) has come and gone very quickly and before we know it we will be in Summer!

With the days becoming longer and the evenings becoming lighter I can certainly feel that Summer is looming over us. With that in mind I definitely have a goals I would love to achieve before the English Summer is upon us.

One of the biggest things I would love to achieve is to get myself back into running. As I have reached a plateau in my weight loss, it certainly seems my body needs exercise - I am most certainly not going to get the toned body I want with just changing my eating habits! For me it is just finding the up and go of actually getting outside...

Secondly, I would love to go on more adventures and meet new people. Having social anxiety, I often shy away from events or places that scare me and I tend to shut myself away from the world. I would like to be able to start overcoming my fears with social situations and put myself out there more. I have a few things coming up in the coming months, which will definitely put me in an uncomfortable place but I am determined to ride it out! This is also one of my boyfriends goals for this year - meeting new people together as a couple is something we are going to try and do. He however has no problem with social situations, he is very loud and and loves meeting people - I guess this is why we work together. We bounce off each other!

Self love is the final goal I have for this month. To me this is the biggest thing anyone can overcome. If you learn to love yourself then your mind and body will love you back! I know that I will not be able to achieve this in the month, but I would love to start looking after myself more, if that means treating myself to getting my nails done, going for a run or simply reminding myself everyday of how far I have come in my journey already.

I have a few exciting things planned for the coming 8 weeks. We have Easter coming up - which means shorter working weeks due to bank holidays, family time and lots of food and chocolate! Me and my boyfriend are off to see Ed Sheeran at the end of April in Birmingham, which we are using as a date night/ weekend away, I have a black tie event to attend, and, our house should (fingers and toes crossed) be completing in May! We will also be hoping to book our holiday for early next year - we are currently looking at the Caribbean or Cape Verde (I have visited both before and cannot wait to show my boyfriend how amazing these places are!). For our birthdays/ 5 year anniversary this year we will be jetting away in September time to somewhere in the Canary Islands for a last minute deal! I cannot wait, I live for escaping reality and lying in the sun. That reminds me...I must start my first goal if I want to get that bikini body by September!

Have you got any goals or exciting plans for the coming months?