HOME IMPROVEMENT | FINALISED? FOR NOW | GnomeAngel

At the beginning of the year I pulled together a list of all the things that I would like to do to the house before Junior arrives.? Today I?m going to share with you an update on where all of those tasks/items are at.? You ready to be amazed? (Well? not really, but that sounded impressive right?)

Here?s the list (in no particular order):

• Recarpet the house
• New window treatments
• Install a skylight in stairwell
• Put a door on the stairwell entrance
• Paint the living and dining area
• Paint and wallpaper the nursery
• Paint the master bedroom
• Set up the guest room
• Purchase a new bedroom suite for master bedroom
• Organize under stair storage
• New desks and desk chairs
• New dining table and chairs
• Order more DVD shelves for lounge room
• Put in kitchen cornice
• Tidy up the front courtyard
• Eames chair to replace dog couch
• Call in pest control (for the spiders not the dogs!)
• Complete the back courtyard
• Find a chair for the nursery
• Repurpose the buffet to be a change table
• Storage boxes for bedroom shelving unit
• Ikea Spice Rack book shelves for nursery
• Add another clothes hanging rail to nursery cupboard
• Install a phone port and additional power points in desk area
• Get the laundry door fixed
• Order the pram (need to do this before end of February)
• Get mattress for the cot
• Find bedside tables for new bed
• Find a rug for the nursery

(Forgive the quality of the photos and the cleanliness of the house, I just couldn?t be arsed messing around with things today.? I?m feeling the laze!)

Stairwell

We decided against putting a skylight in the stairwell and opted instead just to get the light bulbs replaced in the pendants and rely on the white walls to bounce some light around in there.? We also decided against putting a door in at the bottom of the stairwell as it was just becoming bigger then Ben Hur.? We did however opt to put a child safety gate in at the top of the stairwell to keep the beagle out of the rooms upstairs.? We used to have one at the base of the stairwell but being the clever beast she is she managed to work out that if she got enough of a run up she could pop the safety gate out of it?s lock and barge through.? With where it?s located now she can?t get that much needed run up.

I?d be lying if I said I didn?t get some smug satisfaction to listening to her charge up the stairs like she?s doing something really naughty and then hearing her come to a dead stop at the baby gate.? I find at those moments I can?t help but giggle and think ?gotchya?.

Painting

The whole house was painted internally back in March while I was away at my folks.? To say it?s made a massive difference is a huge understatement.? We ended up going with Lexicon (a white) through the entire house, with the exception of the nursery.? I cannot get over how huge the difference in light in the house is now.? Admittedly when I first got home it was a bit of a stark environment and it took me awhile to adjust, but now I love it.? It?s just so crisp and clean and light.

Only one slight problem; the marks on the walls. I have become militant about keeping the walls clean.? Nothing pushes my buttons more at the moment then hearing the dogs brushing up against the walls.? Tyson is the worst for it.? He just runs in the house and smacks the walls with his big bushy tail.? Drives me bonkers!

I have found rehanging all the prints and paintings we have a little hard.? I wanted to rework the hanging configuration for a lot of them and I?m finding I just can?t get motivated to do it.? It?s times like these I wish my Cousin was still living here as she?s know exactly what to do and where to hang them.? I have put some back on the walls and I still marvel at how much of a difference it makes to the art to be hanging against a white wall.? It?s wonderful.

We ended up being blessed enough to have a friend come in and put the missing cornice back up in our kitchen before the painters came.? It only took 5 years for us to get around to it.? It?s amazing how you just get so accustomed to seeing something unfinished that when it is finished you wonder why you lived with it like that for so long.? The only thing, the white really makes the beige of our kitchen stand out.? It?s not as bad as I thought it would be, but it?s still not great.? I did float the idea of painting the wall the buts up against the kitchen another colour to try and ?blend? into it a little more but I?m really over the feature wall trend so I?m thinking we?ll leave it white and just hang some art there (eventually) to try and soften it a bit more.

Guest Room

Finally after years of our ?guest room? being a junk graveyard it is now a fully functioning guest room.? Our old bedroom suite went in there and I managed to pick up a really cheap and cheery linen set from Target (seriously, Target is just awesome these days for everything ? they have some really great stuff at affordable prices, there?s no reason to not have a nice looking home anymore!).? We put our former bedside lamps in there and I hung some of the art work that we?ve had in our collection for awhile in there.

I?m kind of happy with how it turned out given that it?s going to be a room that doesn?t see much use.? The cupboards in there are neat and organised as well so I don?t have to live in fear of someone opening them and being crushed under the avalanche of crap that could fall out of there.

It?s going to get it?s first guests in the next month so hopefully it will remain functional and tidy.

Office

Our new desks arrived a few months ago from Ikea and they?re great ? except for the slight measurement snafu that occurred.? (Turns out I just assumed and didn?t check that the desk tops would be the same width despite being different lengths ? whoops!)? Well the OCD in me is annoyed about the sticking out of one of the desk tops I can?t complain about how awesome it is to have nice crisp clean white desks for the both of us.

We teamed them with office chairs from Domayne.? I love the look of these chairs but having aluminum chairs in winter is causing some issues with my backside.

Eames Chair

I was planning on buying HUBBY the Eames chair that he?s always wanted as part of his last non-parent present, but after much debate we decided against it.? With the dogs and then a small child in the house we figured we?d both probably cry if anything happened to the chair so we?re better off holding on to the dog couch and saving our pennies.? Sometimes making the adult decision isn?t as much fun as just wildly spending money.

Pest Control

While I was away and the house was being painted we had pest control come in and spray the house.? (The dogs were in the kennel for the week so it was a good time to get it done.)? It?s made a huge difference to our spider population ? which is awesome given that HUBBY hates spiders.? It?s a boring item but something that had to be done and I?m glad we got it out of the way.

Nursery

Last week I managed to finally ?finish? the nursery.? Well as much as it will ever be finished? I found a great rug from Spotlight, HUBBY and I managed to repurpose our $25 rocker, HUBBY hung a second clothes rail in the cupboard, we picked up a mattress for the cot and our pram turned up from New Zealand.

I?d love to say I adore everything about the nursery but that?s not the case.? I?m not sold on the paint choice.? I love the darker grey, but the top grey is just too? green.? I sometimes wish we?d painted it some bright colour instead of the grey, but given we don?t know the sex, we have grey carpet and a grey cot it seems like the smarter decision.? I don?t love the curtains.? They work, but they?re not a perfect fit in colour, length or pattern.? As much as I love that HUBBY and I worked on the rocker I?m not 100% happy with the colour choice or the fabric pattern.

However, with all that said I am really happy overall with how it turned out.? Given that this is the first time that I?ve ever pulled a room together in a short amount of time and with no real idea of what I?m doing I?m happy with the overall look and feel.? My favourite parts have to be the peacock prints.? Seriously, for a seocndhand shop find they have come up remarkably well and they add such a great pop of colour to the room.? I love the knobs on our white set of drawers.? Such a cheap way to jazz up a fairly boring piece of furniture.? I still madly love our cot.? It?s not traditional in any sense of the word and I?m glad we went with a colour over just plain white.? I love the bold geometric pattern of the rug and how well it just seems to tie a few of the bigger items together.

I really love all of the art work that we have hanging in the room.? I love that most of the pieces in the room have some sort of memory attached to them.? A lot of the stuffed toys already in the room were given to me or purchased by HUBBY and I at various times that have special meaning to us.? I love the dragon mobile and would be happy to have it hanging in our bedroom so I could look at it all the time.? I love seeing the little Magpie booties that Misha_Oz gave us just sitting there waiting to be filled by the next mad Collingwood fan to enter our house.

It?s a happy little room for me and I?m really looking forward to seeing how we use it and how it grows with us.

Master Bedroom

When our new bed arrived both of us were a little surprised? nay stunned? at how high our bed is.? Seriously I have to have a little jump to get into it.? So finding bedside tables that would work with it became a little trickier.? In the end I went with chest of drawers from Ikea and they?ve worked a treat.? We?re lucky enough to have quite a large bedroom so it could handle the size of the furniture without it feeling like it?s crammed in there.

We purchased an Expedit bookshelf off Jess in her ?moving to the US? garage sale and we?ve turned them into our main storage in the bedroom.? They?re great.? A good mix of drawers/boxes and shelving.? I was really surprised to see that we?ve not actually filled it all, we still have heaps of room for additional stuff.

The bed we got has under bed storage which has also been amazing.? It just holds so much stuff; it?s like the TARDIS.? I?ve actually managed to clean out our walk-in-robe and free up so much space by putting things under our bed.? It?s a miracle!

I really love how our bedroom has turned out.? I love spending time in there (which is lucky because I tend to spend a lot in there at the moment!).? I?m really surprised at how just changing the colour in that room has made a massive difference.? I love it.

Lighting

This wasn?t on the list, but after I came back from my parents place I added it to the list.?? In our house we had down lights through the entire place.? They?re a common enough item in most contemporary homes these days, only problem was that the down lights were crap.? Seriously, there?s 13 of them on our bottom floor and at any given time only 8 of them ever worked.? The bulbs were constantly blowing and the actually light they gave off was negligible.

My folks are currently renovating their place and while I was up there they had LED down lights installed.? Oh my gosh, it was like having a bit of the sun captured and put in your house.? The quality of the light was amazing.? So bright and so white.? I loved it.

So when I came home I talked to HUBBY about changing out our lights.? We priced it and decided it was worth the investment so last week we have an electrician (who was AWESOME) come and change out just the lights on the bottom floor (for now).? It was like magic.? Seriously, we can see again!? The quality of the light is brilliant.? It just makes our white walls look even whiter and it?s changed how the house feels now.? As we?re in winter it?s dark here around 5pm everyday, not in our house any more.? We have light!

Everything just seems to pop under these lights.? The artwork on the walls looks amazing, our colour coded bookshelves seem to be alive with colour and best of all I can see what I?m eating for dinner!? Seriously, it?s been some of the best money we?ve spent in ages.

We still have a few small things that we?d like to get done, but overall we?ve managed to get the house in order in the time and budget that we set out to do and I?m rather pleased with how it?s turned out.? I?m so happy that we?ll be going into the next phase of our lives without having to worry about all the little things that we?ve been wanting to do for the past 6 years but have been putting off and putting off.? Hopefully now we can do the next 6 years without needing any major changes to the house.? (Either that or be able to sell it quicker because it?s looking so much better!)

I?m a real homebody so I get a big kick out of having the house the way I want it.? I?d totally rather spend the money on things for the house then on overseas trips, cars or any other big ticket items.? I find when the house is happy so am I.

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