This post features some items – the gorgeous sofa, fireplace tiles, paint and ceiling light which were sent to us for free for the purposes of reviews/social coverage. All words and pictures are mine.
You can see all house updates here
It’s been a very exciting week here in Whinge Towers* aka our 1930s house, which we moved into at the end of March.
*This is for the purposes of this blog. We don’t refer to it as that. We generally call it ‘home’.
In the garden
Firstly, due to heroic efforts by my partner in the scorching sun, the hideous breezeblock raised bed is finally no more! Hurrah.
In its place is a large patch of soil, which is arguably still nicer to look at.
In the flowerbeds, flowers are all starting to bloom and every day is a new surprise.
The fuchsia, roses, campanula, iris, dianthus, geraniums, foxgloves and various other flowers we didn’t know existed have all come out to say hello. I love this time of year!
I’ve also spent some time bringing some colour to the patio. It desperately needs an aggressive pressure wash all over, but the slabs are pretty crappy underneath, so I haven’t yet bothered. The last time I got the pressure washer out to clean a patio, I ended up deeply regretting it as it resulted in having to re-paint an entire garage.
Still, even with a manky moss carpet it’s been lovely to sit out late into the evening, listening to the nightingale having a sing song and generally appreciating life.
The front room is very almost there
The only thing we have left to do is choose a rug. Currently our bedroom rug is in there and although it doesn’t go at all, it’s better than accidentally scratching the brand new wood flooring. I think that would make my partner have a meltdown and it wouldn’t make me very happy either.
Oh, and we have to finish the trims around the fireplace which just haven’t arrived. Do NOT buy your flooring trims from Loveskirting.com as they’ll take your money quickly enough by you may never actually get them. Seriously. Here I am waiting to take final transformation pictures and we’re still waiting on those jerks. 0 stars.
Here’s what’s changed this week:
We have a new sofa of dreams
We have a beautiful new ‘Montgomery’ velvet sofa in navy blue from Oak Furnitureland. It was delivered and unpacked by two very efficient chaps on Monday morning and is just about the most photogenic piece of furniture I’ve ever owned, and extremely sturdy as well as insanely deep and comfortable. The colour is bright and vibrant – more so than it looks on the website – and it looks fantastic with the green walls. It’s a real mood lifter. And yes, I’m aware I’m talking about a sofa here, and I don’t care. I’ve made my peace with getting older.
Of course there are a few downsides; I am terrified of anyone actually using it and getting it dirty, and it makes our old sofas look really rubbish in comparison. I cleaned the cushions so they wouldn’t look as bad which was foolish as it’s just made the arms look vile, like people have been wiping their feet on them.
But other than that I’m entirely in love with it!
Initially we had it situated in the bay window where it did look wonderful; as soon as you opened the door it really gave the ‘wow’ factor. However due to the dimensions – and perhaps wanting to actually use it occasionally – I switched it with one of the cream sofas which are shallower so fit into the bay a bit better and also give a bit of light against the dark curtains.
We hung the curtains
I ordered curtains from Dunelm, but I wasn’t 100% sure about them; the colours were spot on but as you can see from the pictures, they have common kingfishers on them.
Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE birds, but the rest of the room had started to take on a more jungle-vibe. And (as I’m sure you are aware because you were all members of the Young Ornithologist Club too, right?) there are no kingfishers in the jungle.
They were also a bit too long. But after being messed around by a company who, in what I thought was fantastic timing, approached me offering some curtains for review, sent samples and then decided that the window was too big or something, we hung these ones. I’m so glad we did.
They look great and if you pretend you don’t know much about birds you could assume they’re jungle-related I guess. I won’t let it bother me too much.
They’re extremely good at cutting out the light (I had a scientific nap on the sofa to test them) and the neighbours can no longer peer in to watch us go about our business, which is really all I wanted from curtains.
And that’s pretty much it!
I think we’re at capacity with plant pots now. I literally can’t fit any more in.
We’ve also hung some pictures and a clock which is entirely decorative as I’ve not worked out how to read it yet.
Hopefully the stupid fireplace trim will turn up this week so that we can sit back, relax and use it – and of course think about what the next project will be. HA HA HA.
You can see all house updates here