I’ve been thinking about doing a mini-series on my blog for a little while now.
After speaking to one of my friends over a few gin and tonics she thought it would be a great idea because, as there is quite a lot that needs doing to the house; it would make a great few pieces. So here is it, first home update #1!
It’s now been six months since we moved into our lovely home and so much has changed already. I think sometimes we forget how far we’ve come on in such a short space of time. The thing is, a home is something that will always need things doing to it, always need updating and always need improving.
Let’s face it, we’re going to be working on the house for as long as we’re here for!
I’ve pretty much come to terms with the above fact now, I think 🙂 so let’s delve into the nitty-gritty.
When we first went to look around the house, we absolutely fell in love. It’s got so much character and charm which is exactly what we love. One thing we loved more than anything was the kitchen. Well…not the kitchen itself but the space in which it is. The kitchen is at the back of the house leading onto the garden. It’s a relatively new extension and has such a high ceiling!
I would have loved to, in an ideal world, changed the back door into bifold doors so that we could create the feeling that the kitchen is even more open and just flows into the back garden! We even looked at Direct Bifold Doors as they do the most beautiful aluminium ones….but we just don’t have the space. Click here to take a look at my dream doors!
The big problem with the kitchen….it had a freestanding Ikea kitchen and was painted purple from ceiling to floor haha. Now, I’ve got nothing against purple, but let’s put it this way, James’ family dubbed the house “The Purple Palace”.
We set about tackling the colour first.
Oh my word did we struggle. It turns out that despite the colour being lilac and quite light, it was a bugger to paint over. We ended up having to get some undercoat and doing two layers of this before our new paint would even cover it. To decide on a colour, we spent so many nights trawling through Pinterest to try and get some inspiration, before heading to Farrow and Ball to pick our dream colours.
We decided that to be in keeping with the country feel we wanted to create that we’d have a green feature wall and have the rest of the room and subtle off-white. The green is called Vert De Terre and the off-white is called Pointing. Honestly, I was really worried that the off-white would be too white and clinical but actually, it suits the room so well because of the height.
Getting a new kitchen.
Now, this was the bit that has taken the longest. So, we’ve been so lucky that my Dad’s friend is a joiner and knows so many people in the industry. We looked at kitchens for ages and ended up getting a quote from Howden’s. I know what you’re thinking, their kitchens are super expensive so why didn’t we just look at B&Q and Homebase etc., but my Dad’s friend managed to find us an ex-showroom kitchen. Lucky us!
It was exactly what we were looking for. We couldn’t believe our luck when we went to look at it. It is a lovely off-white colour and came with a built-in microwave, fridge-freezer and dishwasher, bonus! The only problem? With it being a showroom kitchen, we had to wait until Howden’s had got their new one in until we could have it delivered.
Four months later it arrived and James and my Dad set about putting it in. We opted to not have a joiner fit it to save on costs. It would have massively hiked up the overall cost, and I’d always suggest that if anyone in your family or friends has the skills, lean on them for help!
We decided that we didn’t like the worktop that was in the showroom so we ended up scouring the internet looking for one we liked.
After getting quotes from a few places we stumbled across a place on the internet called Kitchen Surplus who specialise in clearance deals on genuine, brand new, top quality overstocks from a variety of sources. We went for the Premium Oak worktop which is absolutely beautiful, and now that it’s had some Danish Oil lathered on it, it looks even better!
We’ve also managed to get some gorgeous oak upstands from them too to have against the wall just to finish the look off. With those, we’ll be adding a tiled splashback behind the sink and the cooker, which James will do himself.
I really can’t wait to see it fully finished but we’re so close now! Keep checking back for more home blogs coming soon 🙂
