Tuesday 11 March 2014

Ready Steady Renovate!!...

Well well! It has been a while! Apologies for the radio silence since October, however much has been happening and not much of that has been renovating! In fact we have been having a nice little rest after our mad DIY frenzy at the South London flat. To catch you up...

1. The flat is now rented out to some lovely tenants, who thankfully are treating it well
2. We moved into Arthur Road and have been getting through the dark winter months of commuting (2hours each way - sob) but its soooo worth it, open fires and nearby country side and a generally more relaxed and quiet way of life are just what we were hoping for.
3. We are expecting a new addition to the family! I am 4 months pregnant with our first :)

Of course all of this means that operation extension is on hold right? Wrong! Work is due to start on the extension mid next month, and to top it off the recent storms have made it apparent to us that we are now having to re-tile the roof (something we had hoped to leave till next year) - and all before Truffle (that is the bumps nickname) makes his/her appearance! Don't ask why we always seems to give ourselves these ridiculous time pressures, but it just always seems to happen that way!

As we are building over a couple of manhole covers that are outside our back door to the garden we had to come up with a solution that Thames water were happy with and get their permission before we could start work, and then of course the husband had to finish the construction drawings before we could send them to our builder, all of which has led to our start time, but providing there aren't any complications we should be able to complete the extension and fit a new kitchen in there 'BT' (before Truffle) (eeek!)

So understandably interior decoration has not started yet as there is not much point until the extension is built, or being built. With one exception of course - the nursery (*does a little celebration dance*).

This is the room as it was (before we made it the temporary office which has now been relocated to the second bedroom)

Bit difficult to get a good shot as the room is the smallest - a single bedroom. This weekend passed we have relocated the office, taken up the carpet and taken off the very old and very battered skirting boards - not easy to do under the radiator! it was quite odd to see floorboards rather than the Bacolite tiles that we were so used to at the flat. We also bought the paint too, it is Night Jewels 5 from Dulux
I am hoping that is comes out a little lighter then this - its a very bright room and gets a lot of sunlight so it should be able to take it. We have also chosen the carpet (the boards are actually really nice but far too echoey for a room where there may be a good deal of screaming - although i did put that order in for a quiet one.....*crosses fingers*), which incidentally will be the carpet for the whole house eventually (well the bits that are carpeted anyway! The colour is called Portland Stone, and even though it doesn't feel like it, its man made so stain resistant (whoop whoop):
So the idea is to have a grey background and use cool furniture and rainbow accent colours - therefore being gender neutral, yet modern and fun :) Here is the cot that we are getting (swoon):
And we bought one of these which has inspired the accent colours:

I am going to attempt to make some lovely things and I am super excited (can you tell?)

So I will post update pictures soon :)

Once the whole extension business is started I should be updating fairly regularly again - Hooray!