Blogiversary III – Behind The Scenes

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Today is the anniversary of our first full year in blogging! Woohoo! It also means, that it’s exactly 3 years ago that we bought our first house and moved in!

Since moving in there have been a lot of changes around here

Today we’ll be sharing a few random facts and sneaky behind the scenes footage with you. Be prepared – it’s not all pretty!

We love living in our house, it’s still a work in progress, and there are a lot of ups and downs like when something breaks or it takes us for ever to complete a project, but overall we couldn’t be happier. Here are just some of the things we love about our house.

We love – Our location.

We’re lucky to live in our ideal suburb.

Our Location

It’s great. We’re close to town, have a few nice bars and restaurants around and have some great transport links.

We love – Our neighbours.

They’re amazing.

Our Neighbours

They’ve helped us so many times that we’ve lost count, invited us to fantastic meals and are just great people! Special thanks to Steve (pictured) and Kerry who are amazing and make the best pulled pork – ever!

We love – The potential.

Yeah, our house is still a mess – we know. But we love the fact that it felt like our home as soon as we moved in and that it could be somewhere amazing.

The Potential

There is still so much more to do, that it’s sometimes hard know where to start. At least we’ll never get bored!

Not that we’ve shared some of the things we love, it’s only fair that we share some of the not so ideal things around here. Like our usual mid-project chaos. While things usually look fairly tidy and organized on our photos, things tend to look very different when we’re in the middle of doing something.

This is what most of our house looked like when we decided that it would be a good idea to sand most of the floorboards in the house in one weekend.

Messy Bedroom

Yep, that’s our bed hidden under the mess. But it doesn’t get any better. The living room was also completely covered in stuff.

Messy Living Room

And our office has been piled up with so much stuff over the last few weeks, that we pretty much can’t even get into the room.

Messy Office

Most importantly, we’d most of all like to say THANK YOU to you all for reading our blog!

We’ve said it before – we love reading your comments and still get ridiculously excited about each and every single one we receive. Your encouragement, enthusiasm and support definitely motivates us to keep going!

What do you love about your home? Are we the only people who secretly live in a mess?

Blogiversary II – Our Most Popular Posts

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After kicking off our Blogiversary week by sharing our favourite home improvement projects with you, today we’ll be sharing our top 5 most popular posts with you.

Coming in at number 5 is… (insert drumroll here)

5. Our Pendant Veneer Lamp Shade

Our veneer lampshade in the hallway is still one of our favourite projects.

Veneer Lamp Shade

It was so cheap and easy to make. We love it.

4. Cheap Bathroom Makeover

We updated our little bathroom even before moving in. It was so smelly and dirty – really absolutely disgusting –  we had to come up with a quick fix to make things bearable.

Bathroom

Our bathroom is still in need of a complete overhaul, but with so many other projects planned at the moment it will have to wait a little while longer.

3. Please Mind The Gap

Our post on how we insulated the gap between the skirting board and floor is still really popular.

Filling Gap Between Skirting And Floorboard

It may not be the prettiest or exciting post ever, but it’s definitely made a huge difference to our previously draughty and cold floors. We’ll be sharing an update on how it’s holding up after over 2 years of being installed and sharing a few extra tips with you soon.

2. Restoring An Original Cast Iron Fireplace

When we moved into our house the fireplace in our bedroom was covered in loads of layers of paint and the hearth was hidden under a smelly carpet.

17-Master-Bedroom

After hours of stripping away the gunky paint and cleaning & polishing everything it’s back to what it would have looked like over a 100 years ago.

And our most popular post of all time is…

1. Our Staircase Restoration

We love our staircase! It took us a ridiculous amount of time to strip, sand, stain and paint everything, but the work was definitely worth it.

Edwardian Hallway

Now that we’ve also sanded our floorboards, the hallway is finally starting to take shape.

Do you have a favourite post? What’s your favourite project? 

Blogiversary I – What We’ve Been Up To So Far

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As we already warned you last week, this Thursday it’s exactly three years ago since we bought our first house. It’s also our 1st Blogiversary!

All of this week we’ll be sharing some of our favourite projects, biggest before & afters, behind the scenes gossip as well as some never before seen footage with you.

To kick this week of, we’re going right back to the beginning and will be sharing some of our biggest home improvements with you.

The hallway is one our favourite before and afters. I still can’t get over the fact that anyone would think it’s a good idea to paint everywhere brown and green!

Hallway Before

Now, just three short years later…

Edwardian Hallway

This is the view looking the other way.

Edwardian Hallway

And this is the same view now.

Edwardian Hallway

Looking down the stairs it used to look like this

Edwardian Staircase

Now, after restoring the staircase, stripping and painting the front door and sanding the original floorboards it looks like this

Staircase Restoration

The living room has also gone through a lot of changes. Even before moving in we removed the smelly and dog pee soaked carpet.

Living Room Before

We’ve since had the windows replaced, the electrics and plumbing sorted, the floors sanded, a new original fireplace installed and the room replastered.

Sanding Floorboards

Looking towards the fireplace, this is what the room used to look like.

Living Room Before

Since moving in, we’ve restored the living room door, had some bespoke cupboards and shelves built and painted and decorated the room.

Living Room Progress

Living Room Progress

Our bedroom has also changed a lot since we first move in.

Master Bedroom Before

Like in our living room, our bedroom has undergone some major changes. Again we’ve had the electrics and plumbing sorted, and the ceiling replastered.

Edwardian Bedroom

Looking the opposite way, this is what our bedroom used to look like.

Edwardian Bedroom Before

We also had the floor sanded, restored the original cast iron fireplace and redecorated the whole room.

Bedroom Progress

There’s still a lot to do, but it’s slowly getting there.

Do you have a favourite room in your house? Is there a project you’ve completed that you are particularly happy with?

We’re Going Plant Potty

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Although our garden is still in a complete state of chaos after taking down the garden wall and starting to build a new raised bed, we still couldn’t resist tackling yet another garden related project.

Messy Garden

In addition to finally starting to build the foundations for our new raised bed – here’s a sneaky peak -
Building A Raised Bed

we’ve also started to think about the final design and planting. I know, I know. Every time we do this, we say that we’ll finish our projects before starting other ones, but we just couldn’t resist. Concentrating on one thing at a time would just be too easy!Even before properly designing our garden (and we still think of it as a work in progress) we bought these huge garden plant pots at IKEA.

Painting Gräset Plant Pots

We’d been looking for some really large pots for a while, but they were all way beyond our price limit, so you can imagine our delight at finding these beauties. Even better, they were on offer at only £15 each. The only problem was that they only had them in blue and red – luckily that’s nothing that a bit of paint can change.

Painting Gräset Plant Pots

At first I tried painting one of them indoors, but the paint smelt so much, that it made me dizzy within seconds. Even after painting these three outside, I felt quite ill for about an hour afterwards. Other than the smell, the paint – we used Hammerite Silver Metal Paint – covered really well and gives a great silver finish.

Painting Gräset Plant Pots

We applied the paint using a small roller, which was really quick and effective. After about an hour of work, we’d already applied the first coat of paint.

Painting Gräset Plant Pots

While the plant pots were turned upside down, we also drilled some drainage holes into the base of the pots. After a bit more painting, the pots are ready to fill.

With the huge amount of rubble lying around in our garden, we decided to use some of the old paving slabs as drainage for the bottom.

Painting Gräset Plant Pots

Now they’re ready to fill with some pretty plants. We can’t wait for the garden to be more finished to finally but the pots to use. Now all we need is some sunshine!

Is the summer where you are as miserable as it is here? Are you like us and can only face doing the gardening when the weather is nice?

8 Windows

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One of the things on our 10 point project list for this year, is sorting out/ replacing at least some of the windows in our house.

Just after moving in we replaced the windows in the living room and in the office, but all the others still need either repairing or replacing.

The lack of maintenance probably hasn’t helped – prepare yourself – this is what the windows looked like when we moved in.

Dirty Windows

And that’s on the inside! They’re obviously a lot cleaner now, but they have seen better days. Some of the hinges are worn and a lot of the double glazed units have misted.

We’d also like to reinstate the stained glass panels, like on the windows we’ve already replaced in the living room and office. Luckily we know what the design would have originally been, as the glazing in and around our front door is still original and because our direct neighbours still have their original stained glass panels.

Edwardian Hallway
Here in the UK, it’s important to use a FENSA approved contractor. Once they have installed your windows, they will issue you with a certificate stating that the installation complies with Building Regulations.

Fensa Certificate
This included things like the type of glazing used, minimum U-Values and safety glazing.

We’ve already had a few companies round to give us quotes for the work, but we’ve still not decided what to do as the prices that came back varying significantly.

For instance the price to replace our guest bedroom window varies from £400 to £920! It’s a shocking difference, especially considering it’s for the exact same thing.

We don’t believe in necessarily choosing cheapest company, as we feel that the price has to be both fair and reasonable for us, but also large enough for companies to make a profit. Having said that, we really don’t have cash to splash, so are always keen on getting the best price.

Comparing quotes can be difficult. We were very specific about the type of window we’d like as we’d like them to be exactly the same as the ones we’ve already replaced. Being specific about what you want will also make your quotes more comparable.

Have you ever had windows replaced? Or have you ever had building quotes come back that vary by huge amounts?