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.