2011 The Year of Home Improvements

You may or may not know but my boyfriend and I bought a house in August last year. It's a 2 bed end mews property with a garden, garage and drive, and we love it. During the past few months we've been living here, we've made a few little changes to the house but to be honest there wasn't a great need as the woman who owned it before had great style in decorating. So the lounge, kitchen, main and spare bedrooms have stayed decorated as they are.
The only room we really wanted to change was the bathroom. It used to have yellow tiles and a border with fish on it. Not the best, I know. So as this is our first house and we're on a bit of a budget, we decided that instead of re-tiling the entire bathroom, we'd just paint over the tiles that were already there. So in January, we had a week off and spent 3 days solid painting coat after coat of white tile paint over the yellow. I'm glad to say it now looks fantastic and modern. Major improvement! So the next step was to paint the walls as they were just cream and boring. We've only just got round to this now but we've gone for Waterfall blue, it's pale but just brightens the room up. Finally, I really want to change the floor. It's currently carpet which isn't fantastic when it's getting wet all the time, so we're thinking some kind of tiles, probably dark grey. Just to give you a taster of the before and after (so far), I've included a couple of snapshots below. 
Before...

After... With my gorgeous new boat, very on trend with the nautical theme for SS11/12.

The next plan is to tackle the garden. We have a fantastic outdoor space considering the size of our house. There's a decent size lawn, some gravel, and a patio behind the garage, which is a brilliant sun trap on these gorgeous summer days we're having. In the past couple of months I've begun planning what I want to do with all this space and thought I'd share some thoughts in the hope that I can either inspire you, or you can tell me some better ideas! I should mention that as I type this, I'm sat out on some new patio furniture with my feet up and a nice cold glass of Lucozade Original. That may seem an odd choice of drink, but as you found out yesterday, I'm still ill. Anyway, back to the garden plans. I purchased some vegetables to grow in pots in the house before transferring them outside so I'm hoping to put these in pots and hanging baskets around the garden, along with normal flowering plants, to give it a bit of colour. 

The fence panels all need re-painting, currently we have a wide variety of colours due to the fact that when the horrendous wind came a few months ago, a couple of panels blew out. Then there's the issue of weeds. We have a lot of gravel around the lawn and patio, and this seems to be over run with weeds and moss. I've bought some weed killer which should hopefully help, and then they all need a good hosing down. Same goes for the patio, unless we decide to swap the current beige stone flags for some sleek and modern grey slate flags, courtesy of my parents left over from their gardening adventures. So this morning we ventured to Homebase (if anyone reads this today and hasn't seen the advert there's 15% off everything just today), to buy all the things we needed to complete the jobs above. I thought to myself, I'll just have a bit of a look at patio furniture and see if there's anything nice and cheapish. Little did I know that as soon as we walked through the door, there would be the perfect set for us. Well, to be accurate the set in the door was a 4 chair and round table set, and we opted for the larger rectangular table with parasol and 6 chairs. £170! Cannot believe it, these are the most comfortable outdoor chairs I have ever sat on, except those day beds on holidays. So yes, the credit card came out and we bought in to the offer. I have to say, I love it, and I can finally enjoy sitting outside! 

Obviously this picture is from the catalogue as there is no way that the weather pictured is in England, or that I am rich enough to afford a pool!

All I need now is some outdoor dining, some fairy lights and little lanterns and it should be done! Roll on the BBQs : )

Finally, my other venture for the year will be the spare room. Though this doesn't need decorating, it's currently a gorgeous pale turquoise, it does need some better furniture to make it more practical. At the moment we have it as a spare double bedroom/dumping ground/washing room. The bed has been used twice and takes up the most space, so we thought it would be better to get a sofa bed so we can have a TV and the WII up there, use it as a second lounge, but if anyone wants to stay over, there's still somewhere to sleep. Then I'd like to get a desk big enough for my laptop and space for dressmaking, so I can use the room when the boyfriend wants to play FIFA in the lounge downstairs. I also bought a mannequin the other day so this will live there too. Hopefully, this will all help me to get on with my dressmaking more vigorously and actually finish the two dresses I'm currently trying to make. 


I'll keep you updated on our progress through the year. But for now, I'll just sit back, relax and enjoy the sun while I can.


Happy sunbathing.


Lots of love,