We moved house again to another project!

Our New Home

We moved into our new home just over a year ago. It had been empty for around 3 years and had been left unattended during that time. The result was a very overgrown garden and a damp and cold house. When we first viewed the house we were immediately able to look beyond it's state of disrepair and see the ultimate potential. We fell in love with it! We knew it would take a few years to transform into anything like how we want it to be, but we were still excited about taking on this project. Moving into the house with young children was quite daunting. We had to prioritise the projects with the children's safety being paramount. The garden lacked fencing to secure the children, there was little heating downstairs and a boiler that was over 20 years old.

The whole house was filthy with signs of mice activity and masses of cobwebs everywhere, together with damp and mould patches. The garden was knee high with brambles, nettles and ivy everywhere. Underneath the garden greenery was broken glass and rubbish and we also found two large ponds that were almost hidden. We had quite a task on our hands!

During the past year we have already made quite a few changes to the house. As I really enjoy looking at other people's 'before and after' decorating and gardening projects, I thought maybe other people would be interested to see ours.

Photo's of our home when we bought it

The old fashioned lounge

This is quite a large room which used to be the public bar when the house was previously a country pub, about 30 years ago.

transforming an old fashioned lounge into a modern front room

We have now completed the revamp on this room. Take a look at the transformation.

Disgusting dirty bathroom

View the bathroom tranformation. From dull and dark to a bright bling bathroom

some of the bedrooms before

this will be the master bedroom

this will be the children's bedroom

this will be the playroom

this will be the study

this will be the guest bedroom

The old bar room

the room with a bar

The utility room

the utility room before

The downstairs toilet

the old downstairs toilet/ wet room

The kitchen

The overgrown garden

Comments

Decorating The Spare Guest Bedroom

This room was previously a child's bedroom according the the lilac carpet and pink disney wallpaper. Before... The first job was to strip the wallpaper which was an easy job as the paper was the pre-glued type and peeled off like child's stickers. The walls were then prepared by filling holes and then sanding down. The carpet was heavily stained so this was removed and replaced with a bargain buy remnant that cost only £59 from a carpet shop closing down sale . The new carpet is a thick, short pile, hessian back in a wine colour. The colour scheme for this room was determined by the bargain buy carpet. We decided on a neutral 'soft white' for the walls and used burgundy and gold bedding to match the carpet. After...

Garden Projects - Building a small rockery in a weekend on a budget

My Weekend Garden Rockery my weekend garden rockery after 2 months After collecting together all the rubble, rocks and plants this rockery was actually built from scratch in 2 days! Before the rockery I had a small area of soil, which was an odd shape, in between some of the concreted areas in the garden. The previous owners must have used it as a planting area but there was no sign of any viable plants left. When I got my new puppy he decided to use this area as a toilet and I needed to distract him from this. Last year I planted this area with busy lizzy's which did look pretty but with a new puppy I didn't think that filling this area with flowers (for him to dig up and eat) would be a good idea! Around the garden I had quite a bit of hardcore and bricks as well as large stones so I decided to build a rockery. It is the first time that I have built one from scratch and probably isn't the best looking rockery but I am pleased with it ...

Creating A Bright Staircase

When we moved into our home the staircase was dark and dingy with dirty green carpet and drab wall colour. The handrails and spindles had been removed which made the stairs very unsafe. Before... The only aspects of the staircase that we liked were the dado rails and the existing light fitment. The light fitment... We needed to brighten up this area as there is no window in the stairwell. We decided on a light blue and white (colonial theme) which should create a lighter area. To decide on the shade of blue we bought a variety of testers and painted blocks of colour onto the wall (then wrote in pencil over each colour the exact name of the paint). The walls with blocks of paint... The first main job was to make the staircase safe to use. Our carpenter fitted spindles and banaster along the landing and down the right side of the stairs. We then lifted the old carpet and disposed of it, leaving the gripper rods and underlay for re-using. Once we...

My Home Decorating Project

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