New floor

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!


Here are some before/after pics. 


Before:

After:

Kitchen progress

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:

Our progress so far

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. 

Hotel Love

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...

The Dandelions Armchair...

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!)

Granny Square blanket

I came across the following at Dottie Angel's blog, which is absolutely mouth watering. Definitely on my to-do list. 

She got the pattern for this from the Yvestown Blog - and here is the original!

I don't know how to crochet, but here is my reason and inspiration to learn! The pattern is here. Looks like a great way to use up my yarn stash... 

Wallpaper - paint by numbers

I came across this paint-by-numbers wallpaper today. The perfect way to get your decor to perfectly match your furniture! It's £40 a roll which is much cheaper than I would have guessed. I love the top one - might buy a roll to use for covering furniture. There's a brilliant Sunday Times article on how to wallpaper a chest of drawers here. And below are some inspiring pictures of a small Ikea set of drawers which have been decorated with patterned paper. 

And below are some inspiring pictures of a small Ikea set of drawers from Shine Design which have been decorated with patterned paper. I have some of these drawers myself which are plain wood at the moment and it would be nice to do something creative with them. Stay tuned! 

Anyway today is Christmas Eve so I will be signing off for a couple of days to enjoy Christmas - hope you all have a lovely break and come back soon!