A Year In Our New Home + What We’ve Managed So Far

It’s hard to believe but this week we’ve been in our new home for a full year! Isn’t it amazing just how quickly time passes?!

Seriously, the last 12 months feel like such a blur. So much has changed is a relatively short space of time that it has, at times, felt difficult to keep up.

So, after a full year in our new home, it’s safe to say that we’re finally starting to feel like we’ve arrived. Will we stay here forever? Probably not, but with so many DIY projects still ahead of us we’ll definitely be here for a while!

It’s taken time, but the more projects we do and the more we personalise our space the more it feels like home. Yes, there are still lots of things we miss about living in the UK but luckily we get to visit often!

In terms of progress in the apartment, it feels like we’ve not done anything which, of course, isn’t quite true. I guess I just always want more projects to be done – faster!

In the greater scheme of things we’re not doing too badly and things are progressing nicely.

To date, sanding the floors is by far the biggest improvement we’ve made to our new home. I’m really not exaggerating when I say that it’s completely changed the look and feel of the whole apartment.

The transformation from dirty, grey and paint covered to the rich oak parquet floors we have now is so amazing and I’d recommend sanding your floorboards to anyone.

I’m not going to lie, though. Sanding floors is super hard work. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fairly easy DIY project to do but it’s physically so tiring and really pushed me to my absolute limit. Poor Jan had to give me a massage every evening because I felt like I could barely walk and could snap in two at any moment.

Don’t let that put you off though! It is worth it – promise!

If you’re thinking about sanding your floors, we’ve shared lots of posts with all details of how to sand your floors and floorboards yourself right through to the biggest floor sanding mistakes we see over and over again.

A huge project that we’ve just finished is our kitchen makeover! Yep, you heard right – it’s finished!

I’m just adding the last finishing touches and still need to take some pictures (which is always difficult around this time of year when it’s just sooo dark for such a big portion of the day).

The transformation is pretty dramatic and I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am about sharing our new kitchen. The cabinets have gone from a boring and slightly dirty feeling off-white colour to a gorgeous dark blue-grey colour (it’s Railings by Farrow & Ball).  

For now, here is a sneaky before & after….

Watch this space as we’ll be sharing the finished room in the next week or so!

Another project that we have (kind of) completed is our bedroom makeover. Again, we’ve not yet shared the completely finished room (because it isn’t!) but we’re slowly getting there.

We tried to be a bit more experimental with this makeover because it was the first time that we painted everything the same colour. When I say everything, I mean everything! Walls, doors, radiators, skirting and even the sockets and light switches. It definitely paid off as we love how it turned out.

It has such a fantastic feel and somehow feels much calmer and has an elegant touch.

I know it seems kind of bonkers to paint switches and sockets but they turned out sooo well. There’s not a single scratch or chip in sight, even where you inevitably scratch the socket with the plug pins. If you have boring cheap white sockets I honestly can’t recommend this upgrade enough!

As part of our bedroom makeover, we also received a fab new mattress which was kindly gifted to us by the lovely guys over at Bruno last year. (You can read the full review of the Bruno mattress here*).

We still really love the mattress! It feels really bouncy at first when you sit on the edge but it’s kind of firm and soft at the same time when you lie down. Yes, I know that sounds weird but it really is. I know that mattresses are really down to personal preference but we’d definitely recommend giving Bruno a try if you’re looking for a new one!

Other than the big projects like our total kitchen makeover and epic floor sanding efforts we’ve also managed to complete a bunch of smaller projects, too

We panelled and painted our front door (although I’m still not sure about the colour), we gave our balcony a makeover which involved painting the exterior walls a super dark green-grey, adding a tonne of plants and some colourful outdoor furniture and the most recent project we shared is our DIY herringbone desk which was super easy to build.

Next up on our DIY list is finally finishing our guest bedroom so that we can start Airbnbing! We’re both really excited about hosting guests and can’t wait to get the room updated so that it’s s a lovely welcoming space for our guests to relax in after a day of sightseeing in Berlin.

What were the first improvements you did to your home? Do you have big plans for your home for this year, too? Are we the slowest DIYers ever? (Don’t answer that one! ;) ) 

* We were gifted the mattress last year in exchange for an honest review. We only share products that we love and think that you will, too. Our opinions are always our own and we’re always honest. This “1 year later review” is in no way sponsored and we really do love our Bruno mattress.