Our Forever House - First Floor

by Roz

As it's Tuesday, I'm back with another house post :)  Firstly apologies for the quality of the floor plan below, for some reason I can only find one print out of this level of the house and well, as you can see it's rather grubby and creased!  I've still included it as I think it really helps to see the layout of each of the floors.  As with previous posts, the rooms at the top of the plan are at the rear of the property, in this case the Guest Bedroom and the Master Bathroom, and the large room is at the front of the property.

Architect drawing of the first floor

You've already seen a few pictures of our L-shaped room, it's the biggest room in the house and we have so many ideas for it.  Hopefully the wood burning stove will work as so many of you have recommended one from first hand experience, thanks guys!  I imagine this room could get pretty chilly in the winter months with those big windows.

The formal living room

This room is going to be our more formal living room, the living room on the Ground Floor will be used a lot as it will really be an extension of the kitchen, so I'm looking forward to having this space that will hopefully remain a bit tidier and a lovely place to chill out with a glass of wine!  I really want to go with some bold colours in this room.  The windows, woodwork and cornicing detail will all be painted with a fresh coat of white paint, and with a light oak floor, I feel like the room can handle it.  But what colour?  I've been researching like mad on Pinterest and in magazines and think that I'd like two big chesterfield style sofas (maybe in a charcoal grey) with one or two bright armchairs in purple or teal but I have no idea what paint colour to go for.  And do we paint the same colour above and below the dado rail?  I keep saying paint, maybe I should be looking into wallpaper for this room, but after all the effort to strip the 6x layers of wallpaper from the room(!), putting new stuff up is maybe not something I can face.  I also think we might reinstate the picture rail in this room, we can see where two different picture rails used to be in the room.  Maybe we need to decide on the decor choices first and then the picture rail decision will be made for us?  Arghhhh so many decisions!

Henry is almost my new best friend, we've become inseparable!

I am so in love with the details in this room, I think they are gorgeous.  From the giant shutters that B nearly broke his ankle cutting free(!), to the cornice work and ceiling rose that have stood the test of time remarkably well, to the beautiful door surround.

Check out that cornice and ceiling rose

 Such a grand looking door :)

  

At the rear of this floor is the guest bedroom, our bedroom will be on the floor above, so guests really do get their own little wing :) The eagle eyed amongst you may have spotted the other door in this room, it is in fact a door to the en suite.  

Guest bedroom

Guest bedroom covered in 'sand'

We've made a lot of progress in this room, my parents helped out wallpaper stripping one day and thanks to their efforts most of the wallpaper was removed from the guest bedroom and the bathroom.  In the picture can you see the black 'sand' on the floor?  Well the red bucket is also full of it, when we lifted the carpet in this room (and a number of others) the underlay was so old it had disintegrated and only thick, black dust was left behind.  You do not want to know how many buckets of sand have been taken to the tip and hoovered up by henry.



The guest bedroom is a lovely big room and one day will be home to a super-king bed to really spoil our guests!  I have no idea how we are going to decorate this room, it's quite far down the list of jobs to be honest.  I don't think we will reinstate the fireplace in this room but I guess we have the option to do it in the future if we really want to.

The master bathroom is a lovely big room at the rear of the house.  I don't really have any good photos of this room, I have the almost identical before and after shots below...the first with carpet and wallpaper and the section with both removed!

Master bathroom / Guest bedroom en suite

 

We are going to have a big freestanding bath under the window - just not the £4,000 one I fell in love with when we first went bathroom shopping!  I can't believe that a salesman would actually let me get in the bath to try it out knowing it cost the same as a car!!  There's going to be a great big walk in shower and a big old mirror above a large sink / vanity.  Pretty sure we're putting a toilet in here too ;)  And that large cupboard is immense, it's going to be fab to have so much storage in a bathroom.  I would really like to put wood panels around the lower half of the walls and paint it white, with the walls painted a deep cadbury purple.  Initially B was happy with this but has changed his mind for some reason, guys you need to help me convince him by leaving some comments below!  That's if you think it sounds like a good idea??  I just think with 5 bathrooms in the house, tiling them all would be a bit dull.  Plus the ceiling in here is 4m tall, that's a LOT of tiles required.

I hope you've enjoyed reading about the plans for the first floor, come back next Tuesday for a tour of the second floor which includes our master bedroom and plans for my secret wine fridge :)

Roz xx