Inspiration

So this post was suppose to go on last weekend, but due to a busy Saturday and Sunday morning and then maybe I fell asleep in the afternoon, it didn't happen.  Then technical issues with the laptop in The Hut and not being able to get internet tethering on my phone last night (we need wifi sorting asap!!) and there being no app for blogging on my Nokia phone it was an epic fail I'm afraid!!  But here I am now, I hope it was worth the wait :)

A large part of this house renovation game is gaining inspiration and ideas to include in your own home.  We are still at the beginning of our journey so ideas for the different rooms range from no idea, we know exactly what we want, to we have so many ideas for this room that there is no way that we can use them all!

If you hadn’t realised it already, I’m quite into my books hence the library (there were 47 boxes of books from the other house and we had to move them twice, old house to storage locker – storage locker to Forever Home!).  So I tend to look to books and magazines for inspiration, this is my collect so far (I’m sure that it will grow over time)……

I’m also a fan of Pinterest (I will get a button for this sorted on my blog at some point), there are some fantastic ideas out there.  These cover everything from new to recycled / repurposed, and I’ve already got a few to use in mind.

I’ve also recently been introduced to houzz by Mr A (he’s the design guru in our house), which I find great for overall ideas for rooms.  I like to see the ideas all pulled together so you can see the overall finish, it’s already given us an idea for the living room.

Shop wise I suppose I’m just like any other home renovator; I can spend hours in B&Q looking at fire places, paint, lampshades, the little set up kitchens and bathrooms (the kitchens are my favourite) and doors, doors and more doors.  Internal or external take your pick!  And don’t even get me started on IKEA, it’s like a dream shop, I could spend all day in there!  We once went to a gig in Birmingham and it turn out the date on the advertising was a week early!!  Obviously we weren’t happy, so to cheer ourselves up we decided to go to IKEA instead, you could get lost in that place forever.

So that’s what we are doing at the moment, gaining inspiration and ideas from anywhere and everywhere, and hopefully a plan should fall out of it at the end.

As my Dad would say ‘It’s all preparation’.

If there’s anybody out there, bye for now!

Netty J

The End Of The Stud Wall

So last weekend was a very rare weekend off, Mr A wasn’t working (he works alternate weekends and yeap I do work away during the week, and yeap I am aware of how bad that sounds, but it all seems to work ok).  There were no gigs, no family commitments and no other plans (other than an exciting appointment for me at the bank to discuss life insurance – Yawn!), this is that rare in our house that even we were surprised when it happened.

After my exciting meeting at the bank, I came back home to find Mr A with utility bar (a crow bar to you and me, but weirdly not to B&Q) in hand.  I’m jumping ahead a bit here as I haven’t done any room tours yet, only a post with a bit about the layout of the house.  So I will take a step back.

Cue before pictures…..

….this is the Music Room 1 which was previously one of the offices for the previous owners business…..

….this is the Music Room 2, there’s a hatch because this room was the main reception (you can still see the little circle marks left by the chair on the hard tiled floor, from where the chair was moved in and out from under the desk).

This is my rather crap photo trying to show what the full length of the room is before the wall came out.  If you look through the door on the right you can see into the next room, ooh look there’s the book shelves for my library J and Mr A on the left.

Luckily there is only one stud wall on the ground floor (yes that right just one) and it magically happens to be between the two music rooms, it’s almost like we planned it!

Look there’s Mr A again, complete with utility bar….

….and the wall with all the sheets removed, you can just start to see the scale of the room through the batons.

The next two photos are my appalling attempt to show how big the room is now that the stud wall has been removed – Sorry, I will try to get better at these!

This next photo is a wide angle shot ‘borrowed’ from Mr A.  He’s done a much better job of it that I did, for a start all the edges of the walls line up!

I have put together a couple of layouts, so that you can see what it was originally, our planned use for each room, and also one that shows where the stud wall was removed from the music rooms (right hand side of the floor layout).

This leaves me with one final picture, I like to be super organised (otherwise our manic lives drive me mental and I never know what’s going on!) so in the entrance hall I’m planning on putting up a big chalkboard yearly wall planner.  I’ve seen something similar on Pinterest and thought I so need one of those!!  Well the stud wall just happened to be covered in thin (70s style) wooded sheets and they have come off ok, so I have saved one as it is just the right size J

More to come on this another time (when I get round to doing it)…. Oh and there’s or lovely little cat Millie getting in on the photo action!

If there’s anybody out there, bye for now!

Netty J

P.S. I think I’m due another monthly photo of the house, so here it is photo 2 - 10/2014 J