The Forever House - Our Bedroom

by Roz

Our master bedroom is no where near finished but it's been utterly transformed and is definitely taking shape as the luxurious bedroom I was after. There are a lot of pictures of the room in this post from the day we got the keys (in August 2013!!) and in this post where I shared some work in progress pictures!

How the bedroom looked the day we got the keys

I'm hoping you don't recognise the place now! We've created two new doorways in the room - one to our ensuite on that blue wall above and one to another room that we turned in to our walk in wardrobe. There will be a separate post to follow on these rooms as erm, well they are not quite photo worthy (read messy!) yet.

I wanted our bed to go between the windows but B was just too against it.  I'm hoping in the summer he will at least let me move the room around to try it but we are about to buy a tv and hang it on the wall above the fireplace(!) so that might make changing the room around that bit harder. Having a tv in the bedroom could be a whole other post for me. It's going to be weird being able to watch tv in bed.  We've been a one tv family for years and years, I think close to 10yrs, and as a result I've genuinely not watched much tv, preferring movies or boxsets. That was until we got Netflix and I realised how good tv on demand was! And then Aaron was born and Netflix was invaluable for all those feeds! But as B will be recovering from his op, a tv to watch in bed will be great.

I'm so in love with our Bluebellgray bedding! I actually bought it for our guest bedroom, the room with the deep navy wall, but popped it on our bed and it's not made it down to there yet. Their studio is just around the corner from the Forever House and I picked up this set and some cushions in their annual sample sale. I am already looking forward to the next one! I'm not convinced it really works with the gunmetal of the star wallpaper from Rockett St George but it certainly adds some wonderful colour to the room.

I am so happy with our radiators. I think they look fantastic and I love the colour. We never actually saw the radiators in the flesh before buying them and choose the colour based on a postage stamp square of colour chart, eeeek!

Our oak bed and chest of drawers, which you may recognise from this post, we bought from a friend but the range is still for sale in M&S so we might pick up the bedside tables to match :) 

So now you've seen the good bits of the room....

I still need to fix the wall around the fireplace and give it a final coat of paint. I'm so happy with the white fireplace it works so well in the room and it's great having a mantle piece to put things on. We built the hearth out of mdf as the plan is to tile or slate over the base. I'm just not sure what would work best? I think we could add a coloured tile around the cast iron fire (if you look back at the original pictures there were orange tiles!) but I'm not sure if a coloured tile would date or I would get bored of it. To be honest I've not really thought about our room for ages, I need to get looking at some fireplaces and decided how I want to finish it off or it will never get done.

The large blue velvet chesterfield is actually for our L-shaped room - you can see this room called our formal living room in this post - which will finally be finished in April! We have ordered the wood for our herringbone floor and all the painting is finished. I'm actually grinning as I write this! We've ended up with three of these sofas thanks to B's bargain hunting. He found two ex-display ones for sale on eBay and one that someone bought but was too big for their room on Gumtree. Amazing. I think we will put two in the L-shaped room and leave one in the guest bedroom but I guess we will decide soon. I will miss having a big, lush sofa to sit on in our room though.

I really love these shelves in the room. As you can see I haven't actually got around to putting anything nice on display. This was originally a small cupboard with only one shelf at the top, we removed the door as it was going to get in the way of the bed, and added the other shelves. It will be a great place to have some plants, books and photographs on display.

We have no light fitting cause we can't find one we like that doesn't cost a fortune and there are still two sprinkler heads(!) poking through the ceiling that need the white covers put on them. Despite the half finished state, I still love the room. Especially when I look back at the photos and remember how much of the work we did in here ourselves. We removed two walls of the lathe and plaster - so, so messy! And hundreds of bags of rubble for the tip - it certainly added a lot of extra work to the room, but we've ended up with nice smooth walls that we can actually hang pictures on. I also painted the cornice in this room when I was 38 weeks pregnant with A!

I wonder when the fireplace will get finished and I'll get around to painting that last wall??

Wall colour - Incandescent by Valspar at B&Q

Carpet - Cromar Sensations Arctic Grey we love this carpet, it's so cosy underfoot and is bleachable & scrubbable!

Chesterfield - Debenhams

Bedding - Abstract by Bluebellgray

Bed - Oak Sonoma range by M&S 

10 drawer unit - Oak Sonoma range by M&S

Cast iron radiators - painted Pewter from Trade Radiators

Roz xx

The Forever House - our finished Kitchen!

by Roz

The kitchen in the house is finally finished!!!  I am so excited to share it with you as so many of you helped me out with advice on paint colours, splash back colour, which worktop to go with, the lights...I hope you all like the finished room.  If you remember the room wasn't a kitchen when we bought the house, as shown here, so we got to plan the layout exactly how we wanted.  This was obviously great as we didn't need to have our sink or oven in a certain place as we needed to run new plumbing and wiring, but did mean we had endless discussions over how big to make the island and if we had space left for a table in the window. I shared our ideas for the kitchen here and I think you'll see we've stuck with a number of them, as well as picking some different finishes.

I thought it would help to include a few before shots, it seems strange looking back at how the room was!

We are so happy with the finished room and I just know we are going to spend so much time here making fabulous memories. I think back to all the work we did in this room, from the hours we spent ripping up the carpet, and underlay that was glued to the floor, removing the layers upon layers of wallpaper, chiseling out the chimney breast to allow our units to sit flush against the wall....to the work we got tradesmen to do, such as the knock through, the plastering and the plumbing and wiring, it's certainly a complete transformation.

Our kitchen units are from Ashley Ann, who make all their own units in their factory in Scotland and also have a showroom in Glasgow which was handy for all the planning meetings! We went round a number of kitchen suppliers, including Ikea and Howdens, once we decided we wanted the high gloss white doors and Ashley Ann came out with the best price for the taller units we wanted for the room. Their service has also been excellent and I would highly recommend them.

It took us forever to pick lights for the room. There were plenty of lights I liked but as we needed three of them, the cost  ruled out so many of the ones I found. In the end we actually picked these lights in a pale purple colour, only to order them and find out they had been discontinued. Arghhhhh! It was choosing the green lights that resulted in us agreeing to paint the kitchen walls a pale green. The colour is Celtic Forest 4 from Dulux and it's lovely and calming and works so well with all the white in the room.

The oak floor up close 

I'm also very happy with our choice of floor. We went with an engineered oak board, that runs through our kitchen and lounge, in a super wide and extra long plank. The colour is perfect, it's a brushed and oiled finish, and is so much warmer and softer underfoot than a tiled floor. We had engineered wood floors in our flat, so we know how hard wearing they are, yet we also have the option to sand and reseal the boards at least once in the future.

If you look in the before picture, you can see there used to be a door (to a cupboard) on this wall. We knew the kitchen units would make this unusable, but B came up with the idea of utilising the space and creating a book and wine rack. It's genius and so very handy. We made it out of unfinished mdf and then just painted it in white eggshell to match the rest of the wood in the room. Having my cook books on show does actually temp me to use them a bit more often rather than just cooking one of the 10 meals we eat most often!

I took the photo below the day after the knock through between the kitchen and our lounge. It took us a long time to find someone to make the oak glazed doors I pictured in my head for the opening. Most of the places we tried in Glasgow were very expensive and in the end we found a excellent firm called Premier Joinery in Falkirk. Our doors are beautiful and I could not recommend the guys more.

Most people comment on the ovens when they come in to the kitchen for the first time. Yes three ovens might look a bit over the top. But this is my dream kitchen. Our flat had two ovens that were constantly in use when I cooked for friends or family on a regular basis. So we went with three for the forever house. They are Neff ovens and I might be a little in love with them. The single oven in the middle has a slide and hide door :)

My ovens!

The ovens are all slightly different, we have a microwave combi, a single oven and a steam oven combi. We went with Neff as the appliances in our flat were all Neff and we'd never had any problems with them and liked the way they looked. Neff however is not a cheap brand. Up steps B and manages to buy all three ovens and the two warming drawers from our kitchen company as ex display appliances. Saved us a fortune! We went with much cheaper brand for our integrated fridge, freezer and dishwasher and with hindsight it would have made sense to at least read some reviews before ordering these as we already miss our old dishwasher.

I really love having a table in the window. A eats all his meals here sitting in his fab tripp trapp (bought second hand on eBay) and we find ourselves doing the same more often than not. It's great family time. B and I disagreed about the table versus a dropped section on the end of the island. Personally I'm so glad he was happy to go with my preference of the table, as sitting looking out to our garden or to the Campsies in the distance is just lovely. The table is a small, cheap one we picked up in Ikea and I think it actually looks quite small in the space. It works for us just now, especially with A knocking lumps out of it every meal time.

Our induction hob lives on the island and was a real splurge.  Again we had one in our flat, are you seeing a theme?! We love cooking on it and how easy it is to keep clean and the safety aspect is great too. We also have two pop up sockets on the island which come with usb ports for charging phones, iPads, etc. The island is so big that it is usually covered in clutter though, do any of you manage to keep your kitchen clean all the time? Going to bed early usually wins over me loading the dishwasher.

We went with a grey blue colour for our splash back and I really, really like the colour.  A local firm did it for us and it was a much cheaper option than tiles as we only needed one cut out in the glass.  I really like how it looks against the white gloss units and our grey quartz worktop. Our tap is a boiling tap, something B really wanted, and it's great not just for making hot drinks but when you need to fill a pan for cooking.

The stainless steel sink is probably the only think I dislike. I love the size of the sink, it's deep and wide, and I love having a half sink again, but oh my is it scratched. Very scratched already. Urgh. It's an under mount sink and our quartz was cut around it so we have no option to change it. It's minor in the grand scheme of the kitchen, as you can't see the scrapes unless you go inspecting the sink, but I certainly would not recommend a stainless steel sink to anyone.

One area of the kitchen I was very excited about was our pantry. I pinned so many images of beautiful shelving and neat, orderly food and drink. Let's just say one day!

The pantry door...

...that hides the mess!!

The room has a window and is a great size. It has lots of potential for the future!

Well I hope you all liked the finished room, it's been great writing the post about it :)

Roz xx

DIY SOS!

by Roz

Okay it's official the Forever House has become exceptionally stressful!  To be honest it's been challenging from the start juggling the renovations ourselves with two full time jobs, throughout my pregnancy (painting 14 feet high ceilings when you're 38 weeks is not much fun!), and with the arrival of baby star and selling our flat, things have become pretty strained.  I'm torn between spending every single second with A and spending some time doing work in the house to help us one step closer to moving in.  That's one of the reasons I've been pretty quiet on the blog - not having internet for over 2 weeks didn't help either!

Bump and I and our very tall ladder!

So we sold our flat, we got a fantastic offer for it so decided to accept it and are now renting a one bed flat next to our forever house.  Literally next door!  Our fabulous new neighbours saved the day and let us rent their basement flat. Moving from a three bed to a one bed is certainly interesting, the flat is stuffed full of boxes of our stuff, add to that all the baby stuff and it's permanently a mess.  The TV doesn't work either... but enough complaints, it's lovely living in the area with the park on our doorstep and so handy for getting stuff done at the house.  We hope to move in at the start of October, so in 6 weeks time, the countdown is officially on!

We are still doing a lot of the work ourselves - as I type this, B is removing the last of the old bathrooms in the house and when he gets back, he'll look after A while I go and paint.  Decorating wise we have a lot of decisions to make... there have been more than a few heated discussions regarding paint colours, tiles for the bathroom and en suite, wallpaper and the number of TVs to have in the house, hence the title of this post.  B would happily paint the whole house magnolia and he says I would happily paint every room a shade of grey!  We are slowly getting there though, the nursery is nearly complete, I can't wait to share a post on A's room but for now here's a sneak peek:

Yes, baby star's room is grey

The two living rooms have been painted cream so that we can add colour with sofas, curtains etc. and live with the rooms for a while before deciding if we want to add some colour on the walls or leave them as is.  After a great number of sample pots and large swatches of colour painted all over our bedroom we have finally found a colour we agree on!  It's a lovely warm golden cream colour to go with this fabulous All Star wallpaper from Rockett St George.

I've also done a lot of work in my library, the walls are painted a lovely deep blue and I've nearly finished painting the bookcases, fireplace and shutters.  I honestly cannot wait to get my books on those shelves.  The last decision to be made in this room is the colour of the carpet.  I'm tempted to go with a black carpet, the floor area is quite small and the white fireplace, shutters and door add a lot of white to the room.  The only pieces of furniture with be a big comfy chair (no idea what yet) and a table, to sit my glass of wine or cup of tea on :)  Do you think a black carpet would go??

The library shelves

The main thing that's holding up our progress at the house is the plumbing, from the central heating system to the bathrooms there is a lot to do.  We have made great progress with the new boiler system and hope to order it very soon and our en suite is nearly ready to tile... all B and I have to do is agree on the tiles!  Tiling is part of the plan for tomorrow.

We do have our beautiful kitchen fitted, thanks for all your comments on my kitchen planning post, although I can't share the finished look yet.  The worktops cannot be fitted until the floor goes in (and the island will have quartz running down both sides and on to the floor), but the floors cannot go in until the boiler is installed and the heating system is tested.  I did post a picture on Instagram the day it was installed though.

Our kitchen

It's a beautiful bright room and I love the pale green paint.  There is a space at the window to fit a small table for everyday meals and I recently bought A a second hand tripp trapp which is white with a green baby set and cushions.  I can't wait till we sit down in the kitchen as a family of three to eat our first meal here :)

I promise to get back to writing some posts more regularly, A's birth story is nearly finished and I can't wait to share it.

Roz xx

More Pinterest Love with Hege In France

by Bex

Despite having quite a few half written posts I'm desperate to finish, you know I can't resist writing up events I've loved as soon as I can!  This one was written up the day after the event but I held off publishing while I found some better pictures to include, thanks to Hege for sending some over!  On Wednesday night Roz and I went along to a Pinterest UK event and I am SO glad we got to attend!  It was literally my perfect way to spend an evening and I need to do as much of that kind of fun stuff while I still can!  The gorgeous Aaron joined us and was very well behaved for the most part letting mummy Roz enjoy herself too.  I'm not sure turning up with 2 babies would be as acceptable (or noiseless) though so I'm glad mine are still safely inside for now ;)

Photo by Hege

Anyway, the event itself was at South Block and organised by Hege, Pinterest UK's first Pinbassador and was all about interior design and Pinterest.  Totally perfect for both Roz and I at the moment since we're both moving home imminently!  (I actually accepted the invitation from Zoe before even knowing what the event was as I just love Pinterest so much anyway, I was pretty sure I'd have a good time at whatever event they'd arranged!)  Unfortunately, due to the short notice (I really should keep my eye on the Pinterest blog to see what's going on), we were unable to get there for the start as I had other plans for the early evening but as soon as we arrived the activity started so we seem to have made it in time for the fun!  :)

Photo by Hege

Although we missed the first half hour and the presentation from Hege, we soon realised our task for the evening was going to be amazing.  We were provided with interior magazines, wallpaper samples, paint swatches, washi tape, tiles, glue, scissors, fabric samples, flowers...  Basically we were to make our own moodboards like a real life Pinterest board!

Photo by Hege

Photo by Hege

It's exactly what I've been using Pinterest for lately, along with all the baby/twin related stuff I've been finding of course!  In fact I even picked a few of my Pins to make another digital moodboard for the blog recently - I just haven't written the master bedroom post yet but here's one I made earlier ;)

(See original post with links here)

I already love tearing pages out of my food magazines and organising my recipes, sticking them into folders so I can easily find what I'm looking for.  I was in my element with so much new home inspiration around and being able to tear, cut and stick to my heart's content :)  I ended up using just one magazine, I think it was Elle Decoration, but found so many various colour schemes and ideas that I ended up deciding to make my moodboard about multiple rooms for our new home (although the bathroom is mostly not possible for this house but I will definitely be saving those ideas for the future)!

Here is my finished board:

Photo by Hege

I'm very proud of it and had so much fun laying it out and adding bits and bobs.  I was obviously quite determined to fill every space.  There were just so many wonderful materials to use, I couldn't stop!  I've never been one for minimalism ;)

The plum/mauve & grey section is inspiration for our living room.  The teal, seafoam green and champagne colours with copper for our bedroom (I couldn't resist a bit of grey in there too) and of course my favourite, olive green for the bathroom with luscious golds and natural textures.  I think the colours would all flow nicely through the house together too.  I also love that the magazine I picked up had a feature on Brighton which included the picture of the Pavilion which just happened to fit in with one of my colour schemes.  Since our new home is in Sussex I took it as a sign we should definitely have some teal in there ;)

That piece of metallic gold wallpaper you can just see under all of my bathroom snippets was extremely popular with everyone.  Roz loved it too and also used it on her board where you can see it much clearer:

Photo by Hege

Roz asked for the details and it turns out it's from good old B&Q so hopefully not a crazy expensive option as I'd quite like to use it in our new home too.  In fact, I think this might be it here, £17.98 for a 10m roll.  (And I've just found a dragonfly wallpaper!  Not my taste for a whole wall but might be nice as a framed sample.)

Her board was full of inspiration for the grown up L shaped living room in the Forever House.

Not only did we all have an amazing time crafting away and eating cupcakes but we also received seriously amazing goody bags from Hege and her sponsors - Bodie and Fou, Ferm Living, B&Q, Farrow&Ball, Pinterest and Bloomingville!

Photo by Hege

Thank you so much to everyone involved for having us along!  It was the perfect break amongst all the moving house stress I've been having to deal with this week!  :)