When we finally moved into our first flat as owners, we wanted to make the space as open and bright as possible, so we promptly removed several walls from around the house. This suits us much better, as Theo (an avid cook) can be in the kitchen while I'm in the living room and we can chit chat easily. Our last flat had a tiny little galley kitchen which closed you off from the rest of the flat, so we wanted to avoid that happening again! One thing that we didn't think through though was that with far fewer walls comes less potential storage spaces. There wasn't anywhere to put cupboards / tables / anything really! We thought long and hard about the best way to combat this and came up with the idea of floor to ceiling book cases along the hallway. I love the way these look anyway, and it would also give us loads of storage for books and other stuff. However, we also knew that hiring a carpenter to help us would cost far too much for our budget! So as usual we decided to tackle the job ourselves (well, Theo definitely took the lead...I think I probably got in the way...)
We measured the space and then spent hours poring over the Ikea website to try and work out a configuration of shelving that would fit into the space and that wouldn't end up costing too much. We ended up using about 5 of their Billy bookcases (you can also buy extender shelves to get them right up to the ceiling) as well as a couple of their CD towers and a couple of other types as well. After many hours of assembling them (yes it got a bit tedious!), Theo then set to work fitting them all. We screwed them all to the wall and to each other using an intricate system of clamps and swearing... We wanted to try and avoid them looking too much like they came from Ikea, so I bought some thin strips of wood from B&Q and tacked them to the shelf fronts, as well as adding some skirting board on to the bottoms. I think this makes them look a bit more built in. I've given the fronts an undercoat of emulsion and I think we will paint them in a gloss white when we find the time. What do you think?
You can also see one of my cats by the chair in the bottom one. He's a bit hard to photograph as he fidgets so much! Happy new year to all of you :)
Those of you who have been reading this blog from the start will know that we bought an ex display kitchen from ebay (who would have thought it possible?) and that Theo installed it all himself. It has been an emotional journey! We started with this:
and then went through this rather frightening stage:
and finally ended up with this lovely space (theo is amazing) I did the tiling myself and although it's not perfect, it's quite satisfying to know that I did it!
I have just bought the bright blue Kitchenaid mixer after many months of saving. It makes me happy just looking at it! Can you recommend any good baking projects that I could try? You can also see some floor to ceiling bookcases in the background which was another DIY project (I'll do a full post about those soon).
We decided to stain our floorboards and seal them with hard wax oil. The whole process took much longer than anticipated. Although our floorboards are new, we thought we should sand them off slightly anyway, especially after all the trodden in dirt from the work we've been doing. We hired a floor sander from HSS as well as an edge sander (which was terrible, and broke twice - in the end we had to use a palm sander that we already had, which wasn't the best tool for the job). Anyway, we got there eventually. The wax oil is currently drying and we are confined to the bedroom/bathroom until it's dry!
So after all our hard work taking out the walls to expand the kitchen, we had to try and fit our units into the space! This took some doing, and we ended up having to buy a new slimmer fridge as the old one just would not fit. Anyway here are some pics.
Here's the kitchen in bits in the living room before installing:
In progress...
Finally managed to get everything in despite walls that are far from flat.
And I got to try my hand at tiling for the first time:
At long last we got the keys to our new flat on Friday! Before we moved in, substantial damp work had been done to the property, so when we walked through the front door it looked a complete mess...but as it's been a long bank holiday weekend, we've managed to get quite a bit done already.
Here's the bedroom before and a progress shot to show where we're up to now...
We painted all the walls white and have laid new floors, and it's looking much brighter already.
In the hallway all the boards needed to be replaced, which we're halfway through doing:
But the biggest job of all has been to rip out the kitchen and some walls to open up the space - we'll be installing a new kitchen in the near future, which we bought on ebay for a snip! Can't wait to have it all installed. The lovely Theo will be taking on the job - good job he knows how...
Theo and I both have the next week off work, so hopefully we'll get lots more done over the next few days.
On holiday in St Barths I came across the stunning hotel La Banane. I am particularly in love with the tiled floor, although I'd probably only consider this if I was living in a hot country. Also really like the modern take on the 4 poster bed...
My mum has just received the armchair back from the upholsterers, and it looks absolutely amazing! So pleased with it - it will take pride of place in our new living room. Can't wait to get it home. At the moment I've only seen this picture of it and not the real thing, but I am really pleased with it.
As previously mentioned, the fabric is Dandelion Clocks by Sanderson and is everywhere at the moment (including the wallpaper in Hollyoaks...not very happy about that!)
As I mentioned, we've got lots of books that will need to be stored. We've got a couple of big Ikea Expedit bookshelves which I really love, but I'm not sure they will fit into the new living room configuration. I may have to have a look at Ikea Hacker for some ideas, but Theo may well be getting out his tool kit to create something custom that will fit the space.
One last foray into the incredible world of Danish blogs (seriously, there are loads. Google struggles somewhat with the translation!), and this time it's Resignert.
Today I came across Great Things & Chocolate, a really lovely blog full of inspiring ideas. Definitely not possible to incorporate all these ideas into our modest new space, but it's really nice to look at the pictures.
Love the black and white checked floor in the kitchen - considering doing this in our own kitchen.
The kitchen is definitely the worst bit of our new flat. This is what we have to contend with:
With Theo being a bit of a chef extraordinaire, we will be doing something about it almost immediately when we move in. At the moment, it's sort of boxed into its own little space, so we'll be knocking through some walls to give us much more of an open-plan kitchen which will suit us much better. We have recently bid on a kitchen on ebay (which we won!) which was an absolute bargain, and will hopefully be arriving just as we move in, so we won't have to store it in our current living room!
Some pictures of lovely kitchens I have found while trawling through the internet:
And, of course, the beautiful kitchen over at The Yvestown Blog, which is almost definitely too girly for Theo, but delighful in my opinion.
