A table that is just right.

I was beginning to feel like a bit like Goldilocks.  No kitchen table was quite right. The first table I  liked the look of was too long. The second, too wobbly. I gave up for a while then decided to search just by size (an awkward 100 x 70 cm). The wonders of the Internet led me to Easy Furniture. I know, naff name. However, who knew that Austrians made such nice tables? Made with solid pine (which I'm sure will make a comeback!), they also do matching stools that tuck under.

So, a happy ending. We can now all eat round the kitchen table and still have room to open the cupboard doors. Joy.

Eat, sleep, build, repeat.

Did you know that you had over 100,000 sensory exteroceptors in the sole of each foot? That explains why I hate stepping on bits of Lego. Lego pieces get everywhere in our house from down the back of the settee, to in my shoes. I even found a piece in the fridge the other day. 
 

The usual scenario in our house is that the kids get given a set, it gets built, then re-purposed, then finally smashed up. The set is never made again. 

We used to store Lego pieces in a massive drawstring bag but then they wouldn't all fit. I scoured the tinternet for a storage solution and finally settled on this drawer unit.

I did have a vision that the eldest would sort out the pieces into different drawers. That hasn't yet happened but at least we now have somewhere to pop those Storm Trooper helmets in...

Project: bathe in glory

What we have

Our bathroom is a bit of a disaster area. Whoever did the tiling tried their best but the sellotape doesn't inspire confidence.

There's two windows as presumably the bath and toilet were separate at some point. The larger of the two looks into the garage. Handy, if you want to wave to someone whilst having a shower. 

There's also quite a large shower. Great if you want a quick shower. Less great if you're a small person who doesn't like water on your head.

What we want

It's our only bathroom so we need to choose products that will last. I want it to feel spacious, clean and uncluttered.

• A bath with shower over 
• Storage - a sink with drawers underneath
• Heated towel rail 
• Exposed water pipes boxing in 
• The large window blocked up

We've yet to decide on colours but I'm told large tiles are in and we're considering some wet wall panels around the bath. 

Budding Picassos' art gallery

Image: Penguin Books

When he got to Paris he painted many pictures. He liked blue so he decided to paint pictures all blue. "You can't paint all blue pictures", they said. "No! no! no! Picasso!". But Picasso said "Yes!".

Picasso's Trousers by Nicholas Allan is one of our kids' favourite books. They find it really funny. I like it because it encourages them to believe in themselves and look at the world a bit differently.





There's only so much space on the fridge (what with the magnetic letters, holiday magnets and random photos), for all the kids' artwork so we needed another display area.

The IKEA Dignitet Curtain Wire can be mounted on a wall and set to any length. The little curtain clips can then be used to hold any number of art pieces.

It's quite tricky to get enough tension in the wire and you need to ensure that it's level or you'll find that everything starts slipping down. Once up, it can hold quite a bit of weight and is the perfect mini gallery.

Shoe rack to car rack hack

Hot Wheels are the first choice of toy car in this house. They come in so many designs and survive being buried in the garden, sunk in the paddling pool and launched down the kids' Blutrack.

I started to look for some way of both storing them and displaying them. If you Google 'toy car storage', Pinterest throws up hundreds of ideas, both homemade and bought, for organizing them. I settled on the cheapest and easiest:

1. Buy a two-tier wooden slatted shoe rack. The slats need to be far enough apart and deep enough to store the cars. I used this one from Amazon.
2. Glue the two tiers to each other so that they make a wide enough 'road' for the cars. I used wood glue and weighed it down with tins of beans whilst it dried.
3. Add some picture hooks to the top for hanging.
4. Voila!

Where can I hang that?

Wardrobes: IKEA Pax 

Bespoke fitted wardrobes are pricey. The next best option is to design and build your own. With different colours, depths, heights, and an endless array of internal storage items, IKEA Pax wardrobes are the bees knees.

The best feature is that if your bedroom space is a bit tight, you can combine both hanging and folding space. By using drawers inside the wardrobe you don't have to find space in your room for a separate chest of drawers.You can also store small items such as jewellery and cuff links in pull-out trays with soft inserts.

The Pax online planner is time consuming but excellent. In 3D or 2D mode, it allows you to design your perfect wardrobe inside and out. You can spend hours dragging and dropping different combinations of shelves, rails and cupboards into the frame that best fits your space. Once happy, you can then with one click add all the necessary product items (of which there will be many) to your shopping basket.


If you still can't find a wardrobe to fit your space or you want to re-purpose the space a wardrobe provides, check out IKEA Hackers which has lots of ideas.

Our wardrobe

We each wanted our own wardrobes so we used the planner and kitted out two spaces of 100cm each.
We used Lansa handles, Vinterbro textured doors, Komplement drawers, shelves and organisers. We put soft Skubb storage cases on the top.

Top tips

• Make sure you have enough height clearance to assemble them. They come in two different heights (201cm and 236cm). There needs to be 10cm clearance between the top of the wardrobe and your ceiling.
• Think about whether hinged or sliding doors would be better. Sliding is probably better if you don't have much room. 
• Try combining different sizes of frames. For example if you want a 100cm wardrobe you can have 2 x 50cm frames or 1 x 100cm. 
• Trying to fill a corner? Not a problem. You can buy a corner unit.  
• Internal and external lights are available.
• Try and fit in a Komplement Valet Hanger on the side - it's really useful for hanging up clothes.
• Remember and fix them to the wall for peace of mind.

Uh oh moment

You can't put drawer next to a hinge as there's not enough space. We used one of the soft storage boxes instead.
I'd really like a full length mirror on the inside but as far as I know, IKEA don't sell on.

Did you know?

With over 12,000 products sold across over 300 stores around the world, IKEA products are all assigned names from a database of Swedish words.

• Bathroom products - Swedish lakes
• Bedroom textiles - flowers and plants
• Beds and wardrobes - place names
• Rugs - Danish place names
• Children's products - animals and adjectives
   

If you're interested in finding out more, check out the unofficial IKEA dictionary.

Project: the boudoir

Dusty Pink. Who knew it was such a popular colour? A wondrous shade of eighties glam that has yet to make a comeback.

I understand that built in wardrobes offer storage but the rails are too low to hang anything longer than a shirt. Lying in bed feels somewhat claustrophobic.

Made out of some kind of melamine, the gold handles and beading on the doors add another level of fussiness.

Uh oh moment

The built in wardrobes are drilled into the ceiling.  There are some strange electric flickering lights that need taking out.

Cork: but not in a bathroom?

Siesta Cork Tile

Much as I like a cosy carpet, my eldest has multiple allergies that include household dust so I wanted to find a hard floor that didn't break the bank.

We had the budget for laminate but I've found it a bit slippy underfoot. I then came across Siesta Cork Tiles. Warm and slightly springy underfoot they come in a range of colours.

We plan to use it in all the bedrooms and the hall.

Top tips

• Rather than buying the tiles direct, ask your fitter if you then can get them cheaper.
• The joins between tiles aren't very obvious once it's laid but it's worth talking through with your fitter how they're going to cut it into the door way or other noticeable areas. Our walls are completely off so the job definitely required some skill
• You need a few hours for the sealant to dry before you can walk on them. 

Uh oh moment

•  Our fitter slightly under ordered the tiles for one of the rooms. He had to come back to fit them. I was a bit worried that they would look different to the rest but they matched perfectly. 

Did you know? 

• Cork is the outer bark from an evergreen oak found in southwest Europe and northwest Africa. It's harvested during the winter time when the tree is dormant.
• Naturally fire retardant, it's also sound and heat absorbing.
• You can view a good video of the harvesting process here.

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.