We all know the usual quotes people use about enduring ‘The Journey’, especially when you’ve grown up in a Pentecostal church! But lets face it, they’re all true.
We all have to start somewhere, and the beginning of a journey will be nothing compared to the final destination! Can I get an amen!
What’s my point?
First you have to save up for a house deposit, find a property, make an offer, get the keys and move in. There’s going to be lot of changes and it doesn’t stop there. Making the house a home is one of the most rewarding parts of the home renovation/home buying journey.
This is our baby. Our 1940s semi detached house:
This was the beginning of our home journey. So lets see how it looked when we began:
LIVING ROOM
One thing we appreciated when viewing this house was how well it had been kept. What we found out was that although it was tidy, there were a few hidden problems *eek*
In the living room the issue was the ceiling. When we started to take off the ceiling wallpaper (yes, it had wallpaper on the ceiling) the plaster was starting to come off with the paper. The more we pulled off the more we noticed that the ceiling was flaking off in our hands. That’s when we knew the whole ceiling was going to have to come down!
DINING ROOM
The dining room wasn’t much different.
The issue here was that the bathroom on the floor above had been slowly leaking into our dining room. The electricians found this out during the rewiring; they had to cut out the ceiling to sort out the new wires and found sodden wooden beams. Not a great surprise, but it meant that we had to move up the bathroom remodel which I was secretly happy about.
KITCHEN
This was our first teeny tiny kitchen!
We weren’t planning on doing much to the kitchen when we first moved in. I had looked up ways to possibly change the colour of the units on the cheap so we could focus our efforts elsewhere; kitchen wrapping or painting the cabinets seemed like the best options. However, my father-in-law immediately told us we looked silly cooking together in a kitchen where we had to squeeze past each other to get around. After a moment of reluctance and fear that our house would crumble to the ground if anyone messed with it, we agreed to knock down the kitchen wall and open it all up. This proved to be one of the best decisions we made.
BATHROOM
Let me be honest, I really disliked the old bathroom.
I’m not an overly fussy person, well I don’t think I am, but the thought of having a bath in this tub really made me shudder! It wasn’t the worst bath tub I’d seen, but it certainly wasn’t beautiful or sparkling. It was on the list to be gutted and changed, but there were a million other jobs to do first. That was until we realised it was leaking and it moved up to the top of the list. I couldn’t wait to get rid of that awful green lino!
CONSERVATORY
This is the only room that looks better in these pictures.
The conservatory is what I call ‘The Dumping Ground’. It is home to a broken old fridge, a new door yet to be fitted and even an extra bit of kitchen worktop that I keep telling Mr G I’m going to use for a ‘project’. What that project is I have yet to figure out.
BEDROOM ONE
This is the bedroom with the least offensive wallpaper. We made this one our bedroom so that we wouldn’t have a constant headache.
It will probably end up being the guest bedroom as it is slightly smaller than Bedroom 2 but I cannot wait to gut this room and fill it with luxury (on a budget) items. The kind of room you cannot wait to get back to and hate to leave.
BEDROOM TWO
The wallpaper of nightmares! That is all I have to say on the matter.
BEDROOM THREE
The little room.
This room is much bigger than the photo shows which was a great surprise to us when we first viewed the house. My mother-in-law called it the nursery, despite us not having any children yet. She’s obviously got grandchildren on the brain- That’s a thought for another blog post!
GARDEN
I love our garden! It is so full of life.
We may not have the garden furniture the previous owners had but we still have the luscious greenery. Especially our blossom tree which blooms in early spring and it honestly is the prettiest little thing. Unfortunately we’ve had a few storms in the last 19 months which have tried to destroy our little patch of happiness; the fence blew down and broke into pieces, our bright yellow scotch broom shrub was uprooted, and so was our treasured apple tree. I am so glad I was able to make at least one apple crumble from that tree before it was a goner. Rest In Peace precious plants