So it's been a week since my last post and guess what? We still haven't moved in!

As we are learning, painting is all about the prep work if you want to do a good job. We didn't just spend pretty much all the money we've ever had on a house to not at least try to do a decent attempt. 

So have we made any progress this week? I am absurdly pleased to announce that we have completely finished our first room!

That's right everyone, the kitchen is DONE. Wow Amber, you're thinking, it took you a whole week to slap some paint on the walls of one room.

But let me tell you, it's not as easy as it sounds. Especially when you have no clue what you are doing and learning from a mixture of google, YouTube and advice from friends and family. We both work full time and only have a couple of hours each evening and during the weekends to get things done.

The main issue we have discovered is as soon as you decide to make a start, you immediately begin to notice more and more areas that need attention. 

For instance, when we first bought the house, we were only planning to paint the spare room as it used to be the kids room and is currently several different colours. We decided we were fine with the rest of it, we were just relieved to finally have the keys. 

But then we decided to tackle the holes left in the wall. Once they had been filled in we decided to do the same with all of the (many) holes in every room in the house. But the walls then looked patchy. So then we thought, we'll just paint the walls. But that made us realise the ceilings would look a bit grim if everything else was freshly painted. And then we noticed the many scuff marks on the skirting boards so decided to tackle them too. But then we realised they were gloss, which means they all have to be sanded down. Then, once we actually started to paint we noticed that a lot of the sealant round some of the doors and windows has become cracked and messy with time so it needs pulling out and redoing... literally the list is endless!

So yes it is taking us longer than we thought because every time we start something we notice all the little things that make the overall job bigger than was first expected. As I've already mentioned, my parents have spent 15 years building their house from scratch, so none of this is a surprise to me but it is still pretty frustrating. You think you're finally on track to just get on with it and then you notice yet ANOTHER thing that you need to fix first. 

But still, those little things are what makes the overall finish high quality, and even though we are beginners we have no intention of doing a bodge job.

So anyway, back to the kitchen. In theory this should have been quick to do as most of the walls are covered by the kitchen cabinets but in actual fact it made it really tricky. All of the cupboards and counters had to be covered up, then all the walls, skirting boards and ceiling sanded and washed down. Because of the way the cupboards, windows and doors in this room fit together you can actually only roll a small section and the rest has had to be done by hand, which is time consuming and difficult.

The time it takes is pretty much entirely spent in doing all of the above. Once you have finally finished cutting all the walls in and its time to pick up the roller and actually paint most of the wall...well it's all done in a few minutes once you get the hang of it!

My dream kitchen is a contemporary farmhouse style, pale cabinets, wooden surface, flagstone floors, large welsh dresser, Belfast sink... everyone who knows me is probably thinking, wait Amber, this sounds JUST LIKE YOUR PARENTS KITCHEN. But as I've already said before while it was my Mum's dream kitchen and her vision, I had a lot of input into it. 

So it's no surprise that I've taken the aspects I like most and recreated them in my own kitchen. We can't afford to replace the units, the floor, or the work surface and the kitchen isn't big enough for a full size welsh dresser. But I have recreated the colour scheme with a soft, neutral undertoned cream (Dulux 'Fine Cream') on the biggest walls and then a soft greeny gray on the two smaller end walls (Farrow & Ball 'Mizzle'). 

This was for two reasons, one is that the kitchen is very long and thin and by painting the two end walls a darker colour it helped improve the proportions of the room. The other is that Farrow & Ball paint is eye wateringly expensive. The 5L can we bought was £43. And it was the only colour that there was no tester for, so it was going on the wall once I had opened it even if I hated it!

Luckily though I absolutely love it! It's exactly the colour I wanted (I spent forever deciding) and it has completely changed the whole feel of the room. Before it felt bland and empty and now it has it's own character. Although it was expensive the quality of the paint itself is fantastic and it is extremely matte. Not only does this make it easier to work with, but the end result is very striking. It was worth spending the money because it has made such an impact. 

We have also decided to do the skirting boards and door frame in satinwood rather than gloss and this has had a surprisingly big effect on the room. Personally I think gloss looks quite dated and the satinwood has definitely made the room seem fresher and more modern. Plus it ties in with the F&B paint as it is *so* matte that gloss skirting boards against it would look pretty odd. So the extra effort it took to sand them and repaint them was 100% worth it, even though the change is not that obvious.

Maybe one day we will be able to afford to replace the actual kitchen itself but for now I'm going to recreate my farm house look with the accessories, now that I've got the colour scheme I wanted. I'm also on the look out for a small dresser to upcycle as my next project once we've finished painting...

We've also completely sanded, washed and prepped the front room so we're ready to paint that today. As long as we stay disciplined and keep working on it every evening and during the weekends we will make steady progress. Once the front room is done we will be halfway there! Plus the two upstairs rooms will be easier as they are both just going to be one solid colour, which will reduce the amount of cutting in we need to do. Cutting in corners in the absolute worst!

Hopefully it'll be worth it in the end!

Decorating our new house

So I mentioned in my last post that Jared and I have had the mad idea of decorating our new house…

I say mad because it’s crazy to me that Jared and I are spending our weekends walking around Homebase instead of recovering from a hangover after a night out at Jesters like we did at uni.

I also say mad because only a crazy person would think ’Oh yes, lets repaint the whole house, what a great plan’ *nice one Amber*.

Joking aside though this is the perfect time to do it. We are in the lucky position that my parents only live round the corner and they’re quite happy for us to spend a few more weeks with them and make the most of the house being empty of furniture.

On that note, I have no idea how anyone decorates while still living there. The only proper furniture we have in the whole house is the sofa and an armchair (which my parents very kindly donated us from their old house) in the front room and they have made doing anything in this room a nightmare. They are HEAVY and we seem to have done nothing but shift them around the room so far…

The previous owner of our house was my cousin and her husband. They have two small children and have lived here since the house was first built ten years ago. As a result the house definitely needs a bit of a freshen up. They had a lot of fitted shelves which have left a lot of holes behind. Jared has done a fab job of filling these in and the house now looks instantly better. It was amazing actually how much difference it’s made.

As they had little kids the room that was theirs is currently painted a variety of interesting colours. There’s a fair few scribbles on the walls and even the ceilings from where they had bunk beds. The other rooms have just got marks from furniture, white patches from where we have repaired the holes and just general wear and tear.

My cousin has good taste and when we first looked round the house I was totally happy with the colours all the rooms are and I still am to be honest. I could totally live here with the colours as we they are. But seeing as we have the opportunity to smarten it up a bit we have decided to take it and make the house our own at the same time, by changing things up a bit.

We have decided to decorate the four main rooms: the kitchen, the front room and the two bedrooms. That only leaves the hallway and the two bathrooms untouched. The upstairs bathroom and downstairs loo are both painted nice colours and don’t really need any attention so we have decided to leave them for now. Due to the awkwardness of the stairs and the high ceiling we are planning to get the hallway and upstairs landing painted professionally. But we are planning to wait until we have moved all our furniture in as we are bound to make some more scrapes on the wall and there’s no point in damaging our new (and expensive) paint job. There’s no real furniture to go in the hallway anyway so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

The major development has been deciding the style I want to take the rooms in. Apart from the kids room the whole house is painted in a very neutral style which I like. It’s a small house so anything too dramatic will feel claustrophobic, plus it also makes it easier to paint over as the colours are so pale!

It sounds crazy but I suspect a lot of my decisions are going to be shaped by what my parents have done to their house. When you spend 15 years building a house you become aware of the millions of tiny decisions you have to make. Where are you putting the light switches? What style of windows do you want? Do you want wooden stairs or carpet? The list is literally endless and not something you normally get to choose when you buy a house as everything is already in situ. But what it has taught me is the importance of not skipping over the small decisions as they can have a big impact on the overall finish.

As there were so many decisions for my parents to make, I’ve had a fair bit of input in helping them design the overall look of the house. My mum has always had a really strong vision for the look she wanted, and when it comes to making that a reality I spent a lot of time with her helping her pick the items to make it come to life.

So I suspect that the interior of my new home will end up having strong echoes of my parents, purely due to the fact I helped my mum pick things and colours that I like and my taste hasn’t really changed in the few short months since.

On top of this my mum is very creative and good at being able to make the most of a space so I’ve made sure to take her with me on trips to shops to get her input. She says she is wary of telling me what to do, but I personally find her suggestions helpful. She knows and understands the look I am going for, but has more experience than me in actually making a room turn out how you pictured. The main thing is because it’s our house I don’t have to listen to her if I don’t agree ;)

I’m lucky in that Jared is quite laid back about this sort of thing and is happy to let me take the direction that I chose when it comes to the style of the rooms. However that makes the decision quite daunting as there are so many colours to choose from! I’m glad my mum is able to help me with it, otherwise I think I would still be walking around Homebase right now frantically clutching paint swatches!

So what have we achieved so far? Apart from filling in all the holes we have repainted all of the ceilings in the four rooms we are decorating and repainted the architraves (the wood that connects the walls to the ceiling). While we are only painting white over white this has made a surprisingly huge difference. Particularly in the kitchen and front room where the paint had become quite dingy! Anyone who has ever done any decorating knows that the ceilings are hard work to paint but Jared has done an amazing job and I think they look brilliant.

We are now making a start on painting the kitchen and I am hoping to bring in some elements of my parents modern farmhouse style, which is my absolute favourite kitchen style at the moment. We can’t afford to replace the kitchen units themselves right now (maybe one day!) but I am planning to make it happen with the paint colours and accessories that we chose instead. I have splashed out on some eye wateringly expensive Farrow & Ball paint for the two end walls (which are conveniently the smallest) to add some colour. I’m too scared to open the tin in case I don’t like it and naturally it was the only colour they didn’t have a tester for.

Once that is done we will then move onto the front room which I am planning to start sanding and prepping tomorrow or the day after. The whole downstairs of the house is currently cream and while I’m fine with the neutral tone, I am hoping that the paint colours we have picked for the front room will help it feel warmer and more lived in. At the moment the front room in particular feels a bit sterile and I want a cosy feel, with warm natural wood tones and lots of different textures. Long term I would love to replace the carpet in this room with wooden floor, which I think would help create the look I am after even more.

We’ve now got lampshades, curtains and blinds for almost all of the rooms and this has helped us quite a bit in deciding the direction we want to go in for each room.

It’s only been a week since we first started decorating but we’ve already made a really big start. We’ll carry on spending our evenings and weekends on it until it’s done. We’ve never done anything like this before but we’re rapidly learning as we go along.

Does the house feel more ours now? I guess so, but it still doesn’t seem real to me that we will actually live here. Or that I can do what I like to it. I guess that will change with time and once we actually move in.

So that’s my update on our hectic week! Have you ever redecorated? Or is there something you wish you could do to your house? Let me know!