Morning! It’s Monday again but what a gorgeous weekend of sunshine we’ve had. I’m sincerely hoping that it will continue in the week ahead of us…partly because we’ve just had our kitchen plastered and I need it to start drying out so that it can be painted before our kitchen is fitted this month.

It’s been a little while since I shared a house update. The last post on the topic was about a month ago and focused on the bathrooms which I revealed here if you happened to miss it first time round. I’m hoping that this will be the last of the ‘in progress’ posts and that further updates from here will feature completed rooms shot by the rather more masterful Adam rather than my dodgy photography which I can only apologise profusely for.

So what have we been up to? All is revealed below…

Upstairs

We’re so nearly there upstairs…desite the mess in the pictures! With the exception of the linen cupboard everything has been at the very least plastered, whitewashed and the majority of second fix applied. Both Hector’s room and our bedroom have been painted in their final colours and the landing and spare room have been white washed ready to receive their chosen hue. By the end of the month I hope to have all of upstairs painted, cleared and ready for carpeting. In case you’re interested, we opted for Purbeck Stone from Farrow & Ball in our bedroom, Malm from Fired Earth in Hector’s room and the landing will be daubed in Farrow & Ball’s Worsted. Only time will tell whether this is a risky decision as it’s a dark colour but I have a vision and I need to go with it otherwise I’ll always be left wondering…All the woodwork has been painted in All White.

We took a long time choosing the doors for the house; so many of the original doors had been replaced before we purchased the house so it made sense to start again and buy from scratch so that all the doors were the same again. We finally landed on this raised moulding design from Travis Perkins which we intended to paint but decided actually was nice enough left untouched to show off its oak grain. Door furniture is important to me so I took a long time sourcing the perfect polished chrome handles from Handles For Homes; I love the circular detailing around the handles and they feel weighty in your hands.

Once we’d selected the doors we turned our attentions to skirting and architrave. I love high skirting boards and especially those that have beautiful mouldings but was also conscious that the house was designed in the Arts & Crafts style so needed to stay true to the bones of the property. After hours of searching we found Skirting World who incidentally were based in Birmingham and selected their ‘London design’ for both the architraves and the skirting boards. We opted for skirting in a 7 inch height with a thickness of 25mm and primed to help with painting further down the line.

All of our electrical fittings are polished chrome and selected from various electrical stores depending on who had the best offer at the time. We’ve gone for spotlights in the main because it was easier and we found from experience that they disperse the light more evenly than say a central light fitting in the middle of the ceiling. That said we will be adding in lamps and more individual light sources once we actually move in. The wires hanging out from the walls in both the spare room and the master bedroom will soon be fitted with these ‘Hector’ task lights from BTC.

I’m in the process of selecting carpet so will keep you updated on this. Essentially though it will be neutral with the exception of the landing where we’re intending to go grey.

Downstairs

Things have progressed rapidly downstairs. With the exception of the study and the utility room and downstairs toilet, everything has been plastered and first fix have been completed. Most excitingly our smoked, brushed & white oiled oak parquet floor will be going down in the next few days in time for the kitchen to be fitted on 24th May. I cannot tell you just how excited I am for this to happen. I’ll be keeping you updated via ‘Stories’ on my Instagram account if you want to follow along.

Prior to the floor being fitted however, we need to paint and have decided on the colours for the whole of the downstairs too. The kitchen will be painted in Ammonite to set off the Downpipe of the painted cabinets, the living room in Cornforth White and the study in Green Smoke. I’m actually really excited about the study which will be a rather daring mixture of pink and green…hoping it will succeed in the flesh as much as it does in my mind’s eye. This rug from French Connection has the study’s name all over it.

There’s still a heap of carpentry work to be finished off though including some cabinets in the study and in the living room which I’m considering copying Lauren and using Jali’s custom service to make some for us. We also need to choose a woodburner, and a fire surround for both rooms as well and there’s the question of that new front door to go on as well (you might be able to spot it in the corner of the living room in the gallery below). Much like upstairs we’ve opted for polished chrome electrical fittings but won’t be having any lights in the ceiling at all in the living room. Instead we’ve got a loop of five 5amp sockets which a selection of lamps will be plugged into that we’ll be able to turn on and off simultaneously using a normal light switch. Why the decision? Well the room is blessed with tonnes of natural light in the day thanks to the new bifold doors and the bay windows and I wanted it to be a really homely, relaxing space at night hence the lamps.

I’ve been naughty and have been purchasing actual pieces of furniture for the house like these Cult Furniture chairs for the dining table, this pendant light for the hallway and various other knick knacks along the way like these planters for outside the front door. It’s driving Ste to distraction and cluttering up the house but I’m too excited not to when I see something that will be perfect for the space.

I’m going to wind this post up now for fear of boring you all stupid but if you do have any questions about anything then drop me a message in the comments box below and I’ll do my best to answer them. Hopefully the next update will be something much more aesthetically pleasing xxx