Can we do fake?

What type of fire?

I started to look for inspiration for fireplace surrounds before I looked at actual fires. My favourite image I came across was this one on Pinterest. I liked the simplicity of it and the pop of colour.

Our room is a fairly warm room as it fronts on to the conservatory, has only one external wall and a large radiator under the window. So a wood burning fire or stove seemed a bit daft. If we wanted gas, we would have to re-route the pipe and pay for yearly checks. An electric stove seemed the best option.

Top tips

• Before selecting the type of fire you should get (wood burner, gas or electric) you need to work out how much energy you need to heat your room  (you can find output calculators on many stove websites). 
• You also need to research the costs associated with each option. Using an existing chimney is probably the cheapest option but you'll still need to get it checked, cleaned and maybe lined.
• Many fire shops can offer a complete service where they will manage the whole installation. 
• If going for a gas fire, make sure that you use a Gas Safe registered engineer. 

Uh oh moment

Our walls are completely squiffy. Getting a false chimney breast to sit squarely with a fire surround will be tricky.

Did you know?

There are health concerns associated with wood-burning stoves.
There is now a good choice both in design and price of electric stoves.

Project: the sitting room

Can I move a fireplace?

The original chimney breast and fireplace is on a middle rather than back wall.
But you can't sit facing the fireplace because that would mean sitting under the window (which looks into the conservatory) against a radiator.

Ultimately, the fireplace is on the wrong wall. It should be on the back wall where we have our sideboard.

Our current gas fireplace

The plan is to take off the old fireplace, block up the hole and build a new chimney breast on the back wall.


This should be easy....right?

Project: the messy room

So we're lucky enough to have three bedrooms in our house. Not massive, but big enough. The second largest is dominated by an eighties over-the-bed-wardrobe-cupboard-thingy, that takes up most of the room.

Our plan is to take it out and use the space to store toys, hang creations and some kind of desk/making space.

As the room is at the front of the house I also need to think about what we do at the window to allow both privacy and light.



 

What we want

• Room to store all the toys
• An easy to keep clean floor with space to play
• A desk for writing and crafting
• Somewhere to display artwork
• Some way of storing their Lego and cars
• Space to put down a blow up guest bed

Blind benefits

It turns out investing in some decent blinds not only makes the room less hot during Summer, it makes the room feel less cluttered.

Rather than having individual window blinds, I decided to go with wider ones and run them across several windows.

I picked out the dark green in the sofa fabric and found some made to measure black out blinds (Banlight Duo from Direct Blinds).

The door is fitted with some Fired Oak Fauxwood slatted blinds from Web-Blinds. Faux because the kids like to run their cars along them.




The ceiling shades (Mandy Bamboo from BBQ) tie in with the door blinds.

I've left one of the sail shades up over the settee area as it does reduce the glare from the ceiling.

Sunny room project: ta da!

So it's been a while since I posted. My excuse is that everything is progressing but we don't have any room completely finished.

I've done a lot in the sun room since I last shared, so here are some pics.

The floor is a great success - practical and bouncy underfoot.

I'm really pleased with the cushion covers. They took forever as I'm just learning how to sew. With a bit of detective work I found that my mum's curtain fabric is called 'Flower Waltz' by Pat Albeck. It turns out her designs were best sellers in John Lewis in the Sixties and Seventies. There's a rather nice interview with her in The Guardian. Turns out her daughter-in-law is pottery designer Emma Bridgewater.
I had just enough material to make tops and sides to the seat cushions. I couldn't find enough fabric to make the scatter cushions but I found ready-made cushions on Etsy from FabricPaperScissors that make items from vintage fabric.

I've still got to figure out how to replace the blinds. Most of them are now broken. Rather than buying individual ones I think I'm going to source a few large ones that would come down over several of the windows. I may go with a green to match the cushions.

I ended up doing a bit of an IKEA hack and splitting up the IKEA Applaro bench and shelving into a coffee table and wall shelft. The latter now houses my collection of cacti. There are so many creative ways people are modifying and repurposing IKEA furniture. IKEA Hackers is a good site for inspiration.

Shed Love

Okay, so our freshly fixed and painted shed isn't going to win Shed of the Year, but I'm happy with it.
 

The door no longer falls off at the hinges, it's secure and a bit more pleasing to the eye.

We used Cuprinol's Garden Shades paint in Willow and Rosemary. I also secured the hinges a bit more using the Shed Door Beef-up Kit and fixed the bottom of the door using Ronseal Wood Filler. 

Budgeting for a Bungalow

I've been looking for a tool that would allow me to manage different pots of money on the go. I wanted something that was simple to use and free.

The Goodbudget Budget Planner App is great. You create 'envelopes' of money and allocate transactions to the appropriate envelope. You can then see at a glance how you're getting on. 

In my case, I'm already over budget this month for house stuff. Next to my envelope it has the following written 'Hmm, negative money. Interesting...'. Oh well, at least I know!

Goodbudget App

 

Robins and dodgy electrics

So being sensible people we thought it best to get our electrics checked. I booked Martin from Switched On Electrical Services to test everything and quote for any necessary work.

After a thorough going over, he discovered a 'daisy chain' of spurs running off one socket. We have a socket, running to another socket, running to another socket...all the way down to the shed. Oh and we shouldn't use all the burners on the stove as we risk burning the house down.

Another job is fixing our garage door that's so warped we can't shut it. This has appealed to a wee robin who flits in and out through the gap, busily building a nest behind the paint pots. According to our eldest 'He's very sneaky and quite scared of us'. We're in and out of the garage all the time so I'm hoping he'll relocate soon. 

Ronald Robin

A comfy home

Shed

What we have

A bog standard shed with a bodged roof. Well, three roofs actually, with foam sealant squished into the window frame. And boards nailed across it on the squiff. It's also full of the previous owners' stuff from bath panels to random bits of wood.

It's a shed.

The treasure within

 

What we want

A shed that we can fill with our garden necessities and is easy on the eye.

My DIY skills are a bit basic so I paid a local handyman to cover up the messy roof, fix the window and straighten up the boards.

Next step, paint!

Project: the sunny room

What we have

A 5x3m white PVC conservatory with clay bricks and patio doors. Strip lighting, moss covered roof, and blue carpet. It's also South facing.

What we want

A comfortable room we can eat and lounge around in. Some plants to bring the outside in, softer lighting and more practical flooring. Some way of reducing the temperature in the Summer.

Materials

• Paint: Primer, Dulux White Cotton Quick Dry Satinwood, Wickes Interior Varnish Natural Oak Satin         
• Fabric: 1970s family curtain material 
• Flooring: Online Carpets Modus Concrete 585 Vinyl (£7.99 per square metre) 

Accessories

• Furniture: IKEA Applaro Corner sofa (£416), existing antique dining room table (flea market find), existing Kartell Thalya Dining Chairs, IKEA Applaro Bench with Shelves (£91), existing IKEA SkogHall Table.    
• Sail shades for the ceiling 
• Tools: Bosch Multi-Sander, Karcher K2 Pressure Washer 

Work

• Clean the PVC inside and out, wash down woodwork
• Sand skirting boards, sill and table
• Prime sill 
• Paint skirting boards, sill and bricks (latter using watered down paint)
• Varnish the table
• Take up carpet and put down vinyl
• Clean and change blinds
• Assemble new furniture

Challenges
A couple of the double glazing panes are blown. We don't have the budget to replace these.

No budget for new blinds either so I'm planning to clean them and cut off the scalloped edges.

Fabric for the cushions

IKEA Applaro Corner Sofa

IKEA SkogHall Table

Dining Table

Where are all the sockets?

We've not long moved in. Some things are as I imagined. Lots of birds in the back garden, quiet and the can't-quite-believe-we've-bought-a-house feeling.

Other discoveries are 

• A musty smell. 
• One socket in each of the bedrooms. Of which, two are in the built-in-wardrobes. Very handy, not.
• The previous owners left enough crap to fill the shed including tins of paint, bits of wood, a bath panel (?) and enough bricks to build a sizable wall. Oh, and a satellite dish.
• The garden is full of mostly dying plants

Everything is now in the right room but everything is topsy-turvy. The 'playroom' is a toy storage room as the boys still play wherever we are.

Anyway, slowly but surely we are doing little jobs around the house and weeding the mud pit garden.

Leaving London

In my head I thought I was prepared. Well practically I was. The move went smoothly. The removal men were swift and chatty, the cleaner cleaned and I tried my best to placate my two-year-old when the TV was packed up.
My idea of going on a final wander round Greenwich was scuppered by the rain and I ended up eating an uninspiring sandwich in a bookshop while my youngest slept.
It was saying final goodbyes at the school gates that it all got a bit too much. I started greeting and the kids just looked on slightly bemused.
We wandered back to the car over the white bridge and the muddy Creek. Someone, (it was signed 'The Ravensbourne Clan' ), had strung a line across it and there were bits of paper tied to it flapping in the wind. I don't normally take part in acts of public art but it seemed quite apt to do so this time. So we made a wish and added our names to the others. 

The drive out of London into the Blackwall tunnel was 'Wacky races' according to my eldest. Well it was a bank holiday so it took hours and we arrived, in the dark, in a thunderstorm.
We woke to bright blue skies and chirping birds. And fresh air.

Space ideas

So we've been playing around with Floorplanner to see, very roughly, what we could do. The sizes are bit wonky (we need to actually measure the house properly) but it does give food for thought.


Future floor plan:

Current floor plan:

 
More 'broken plan' than 'open plan' (all the rage don't you know?!), we haven't yet figured out doorways/sliding doors/full glass panels thing.

We've got quite a few ideas but it basically involves extending using the existing foundations of the conservatory/sun room and then extending out the side. We've added a second bathroom (essential when our kids get older) as an ensuite, using the space in the garage. We've kept a bit of the garage for bikes and outdoor toys.

A utility room and open plan kitchen that we can eat in are a must. By splitting the sitting room into two with some sort of divide, we can have a TV area and a lounging area.

The snug provides an office space for a bit of peace and quiet.

The deck, accessible from the kitchen and sitting room provides outdoor space for eating and lounging.

The main bathroom has been extended into the hall a little, giving space for a shower and bath.

1950s living

Sold for £2,650 in 1957, our house is part of a small estate built on farmland on the outskirts of a market town.

Originally aimed at the middle classes it offered modern living at an affordable price at a time when housing was in great demand.

The fifties was an exciting decade for homeowners with fitted kitchens, open plan living and new appliances such as the washing machine, fridge freezer and TV. Materials such as formica, vinyl and PVC offered designers and manufacturers new possibilities.

It also saw the rise in popularity of G-Plan furniture. Marketed in magazines and cinemas, it gave homeowners the opportunity to buy affordable matching pieces for the entire house.

As chance would have it we have an original G-Plan sideboard. that I painted a while back that will take pride of place:

It's really ours!

After a slightly epic journey across London with two kids, one buggy and one picnic bag, we arrived at our new town. Managed to get the buggy trapped between the platform and train but I was swiftly rescued.

We picked up the keys (after declining the offer of a free branded 'bag for life' and umbrella...?) and I cajoled the kids up the hill to our new house.

Phew! The decor was a bit tired but it felt bright and full of possibilities. We sat down to a picnic on the floor of the conservatory. The kids then managed to tramp mud all through the house when I was talking to the locksmith. I tried to tackle it with baby wipes but gave up.

In terms of layout, all the rooms are rectangular boxes expect for one of the bedrooms where some space is lost by the chimney breast and a boiler cupboard. Space wise it is around 80m squared excluding the garage. Outside there is a side return to the right and the garden is six fence panels deep including a terrace.

With the bedrooms at the front and the living at the back, there are lots of possibilities for extensions.

I am watching back-to-back episodes of The £100K House: Tricks of the Trade for inspiration. Oh and Ugly House to Lovely House. I don't like to call the house ugly though. And it will take us about ten years to save up to do anything. I can but dream. And knock down walls. 

Bungalow beginnings

So a 1950s brick built bungalow wasn't what I imagined would end up being our first family home.

But with our modest budget we had seen enough 80's low-ceiling houses, 70's boxes and Victorian money-pits. 

On paper it ticked many of our needs:

• Three okay sized bedrooms
• Potential to extend
• A drive with garage 
• A decent sized garden  

I'm not in love with it. Yet. There's PVC everywhere, built-in wardrobes and a garden that needs a lot of work. But I feel it's an honest house that needs a bit of love and work to be a great house.


We pick up the keys tomorrow!