My Weekend of Up-cycling

A few months ago we had purchased a side table from Wayfair. I wanted something small and round to fill a corner in our living room with a lamp, but also something that wasn't pricey. I had my eye on a few with a cream/ antique white finish, but I could not bring myself to spend over £50. I saw this ash toned wooden side table on Wayfair which had a brushed white finish and opted to purchase that it was also in the sale so for £30 - bargain!

After using it for a couple of months it started to mark where the other half was placing his cups of tea, so I decided I would paint it with a colour I originally wanted. I had popped to Homebase to start looking for a paint for my front room and the Laura Ashley paint sale had caught my eye. They had lots of small tins of paint reduced down to £5.00 so I had a rummage through and voila - they had the perfect shade of antique white/ cream I was looking for.

As the table was just a plain wooden table it required no sanding down, so I was able to crack on with painting this straight away.

I am really pleased with how this has turned out as it really adds some brightness to the room as opposed to the ash wood colour! I am in the process of finding a colour I would like to paint my front room (we had already painted this with Bleached Lichen 3 by Dulux, however, I have gone off this colour now...forever changing my mind), I would now like a soft light grey colour!

My next task was to re-cover my dining chairs. The chairs we brought back before we moved in were from Ikea and thinking back now I wish I had bought these light grey fabric ones I had my eye on in the first place. The chairs aren't anything special just a simple wooden frame with cream fabric seats. As our dining table is in the kitchen the light cream seats had gotten very dirty and started to turn slightly black from what I am guessing was sitting on them in dark jeans!

I knew I wanted a light dove grey fabric to cover these, but with a pattern on to add a little something. Whilst the other half and I were in Dunelm the other weekend I had to have a look at their fabrics to see if they had anything. I found this lovely printed fabric that was just perfect for them.

I am super pleased with how this has turned out. It was such a simple thing to do, but just added something extra in my kitchen!

My task for March is to re-paint the living room, and to add a few finishing touches by way of accessories! I may even attempt to make my own cushion covers, so watch this space...

Interior : Desenio Prints

I have been looking for the perfect prints for my home to add some character and to make everything feel more 'homely'.

I have come across  Desenio before , however could never really decide on what I wanted. When I saw that they had a sale on before Christmas I decided to have another look at what they had on offer. A few of the prints I had my eye on were in the sale so I decided to take the plunge and just order them and hope they did the job I wanted!

I can say I am very pleased with the quality of these prints. They came delivered in a long round tube all rolled up in a protective paper. The actual prints themselves are finished to a very high quality thick paper and a gloss finish.

The prints I opted for were firstly for my living room. I wanted something floral with a hint of green and grey and these two were just perfect for the job! The theme in my front room is grey with hints of beige/ white - I am not a fan of lots of colour and much prefer the softer tones.

Finally, I was looking for something to fill a blank wall I have in my kitchen. My mum has these lovely vintage cutlery prints in her dining room which I really like so wanted something similar but for a fraction of the cost! I had my eye on this print for quite sometime and am very pleased with how it looks in my kitchen! Living in a new build property I find there is not much character so we are in the slow process of trying to 'countrify' our kitchen slightly.

You should definitely check out Diseno if you are looking for some photograph style prints! I have my eye on a few more I would like for our bedroom & bathroom - which I will be purchasing next month!

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!