The First Floor Tour

Part 2 of the house tour - The First Floor.....

Here's the floor plan

This floor plan is how we are at the moment, as I've mentioned before Mr A and I have discussed building up over the flat roof part of the house, which would give us more space upstairs.  On this tour I will try to let you know what the room is now, what our plans are if we don't extend and what our plans our if we do extend.  Hopefully it won't be too confusing!

Bedroom 1 - Master Bedroom

This is currently our room and no matter what the future plans are it will stay as our room :)

We have the original sash windows in here, it can be a little drafty but we have now got two sets of curtains up.  One set are wool, so that has warmed it up a bit, that tiny white thing under the window is the incredibly tiny radiator for this room - it's no wonder it is cold!  The brown doors are an inbuilt wardrobe, if we extend the plan is that this will lead through into the master bathroom.  I don't think this photo does the size of the room justice.

Bedroom 2 - Guest Bedroom

This room is a similar size to the master bedroom and is currently our guest bedroom - yet to be tested out :)

Complete with fetching 1970s inbuilt furniture!  There is also a matching inbuilt wardrobe to the right of the sash window, this is back to back with the one in the master bedroom.  If we extend the plan is for this room to become a mega awesome master bathroom, and we will knock through the two wardrobes to give us direct access.

The reasons there is stuff in this room and not in any of the other photos is because we forgot to photograph this room before we moved in - Ooops!

Bedroom 3 - Wardrobe Room

This room is our walk-in wardrobe room, I have always wanted one of these :)  It is working really well and we just been given some fantastic pre-loved wardrobes from some of our friends, so hopefully the cardboard box wardrobes will be gone soon!  There are no changes planned for the use of this room with our potential future plans.

Bedroom 4 - The Box Room

This room is lovingly referred to as the box room, as it is our smallest bedroom (although it is still a reasonable size) and because it is full of boxes.

It is also Millie Cat's favorite room, I think it is because she can see the comings and goings of the road from the window.

If we don't extend, we plan to knock through into the existing bathroom to make a larger bathroom for us.  If we do extend it will probably end up as a large landing space (I'm paranoid about falling down our stairs as we have a very small landing area at the moment and you have to go past the stairs to get to the bathroom - I did consider a stair gate at one point!) that will lead through into the new extended part of the house.

Bathroom

As you can see from the photo below, it carries on with the 1970s theme of the house.

As I said in the box room section above, it will be a larger bathroom or a large landing into the new extension.

Well I hope you enjoyed the trip round the house and the fabulous selection of carpets that we have ;)

I still need to do a tour around the garden, workshop and garage.  Then there's all the original features that I would like to show you :)

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

Netty :)

First Quarter Review

I have been doing a lot of blog reading lately, a selection of house renovations, books, sewing and a couple of baking ones.  I've noticed that quite a few of these have been doing first quarter reviews of the targets they set themselves for the year, and I thought that this would be a nice way to keep a check on my own progress.  So I decided to pinch the idea :)

So here are the resolutions that I set myself at the beginning of the year and where I'm up to or not up to as the case may be!

1. Take part in Water Wipeout.

Yay I have registered for this (a good start to reviewing my list).  It takes place in mid June, so I will let you know how I get on.

2. Do more running.

This ones not quite so good.  I started off with good intentions in January and then the man flu and laryngitis struck :( I did complete my first 10k of the year during the Bank Holiday weekend, it was hard going due to my lack of training, but I'm so glad I had a go :)  I'm back at running club now, just need to keep it up, my next outing is Race for Life 10k at Delamere Forest in May.

3. Put up my house planning board.

Done :)

4. Increase my core strength (should help my running).

I did buy a balance board earlier this year, I've been on it a few times but find it hard.  Balance isn't one of my strengths!  I'm about to give Boot Camp sessions ago, they are being organised by my running club, hopefully this will help.  I need to do something to build my strength for Water Wipeout.

5. Do more things that take my fancy.

This one is going well I went to a vintage fair earlier this year with my Mum & Dad and has a great time, have been to the Oxford Literary Festival for a talk and book signing by Diana Gabaldon, she wrote my favorite series of books - The Outlander series - this day was awesome and thanks to my Dad for driving a 4 hour round trip to have coffee and cake in the library and then queue for 2 hours in the cold for a book signing that he didn't have a book for (Mum and I had a great time) :)  Mr A and I went to the Home Building and Renovation Show at the NEC a couple of weeks ago, it was great to be able to pick the brains of people to see what would be required for some of ideas.  The outstanding item from the day was wireless speakers!  We have also been to a number of gigs so far this year, some big and some small, some outstanding, some great, some mainly focused on coughing and blowing my nose! and some not so good - Steel Panther - just saying!

6. Do a photo a day photo diary

I think this is going the best of everything that I challenged myself too. I'm currently on photo 108/365!  I originally wanted to use this to improve my photo taking skills, but it has ended up being more of a daily photo diary, but I don't mind as I like being able to see what I have been up to - check me out on Instagram (netty_armstrong).

7. Make my Vogue 1419 coat pattern.

Ooops - so far epic fail!!  I haven't even cut my pattern out yet - must try harder!

8. Finish unpacking the boxes!!

Also another epic fail, but in my defense it was on the to do list for my time off in Februry - cue man flu, laryngitis and lots of sleep!

9. Loose weight, we've got three weddings to go to this year and it would be good to look at the photos and think, I look nice!

Hopefully getting on to item 2 a bit more should help this.

10. Put up my year wall planner, I need this to stop me loosing my mind and so I know what's going on.

Yay, although I think it needs up dating!

11. Dress up more when we go out. I have a surprising number of dresses and tops, but never seem to wear them. I need to make more of an effort.

I trying!

12. Refurbish the Living Room

We have sorted most of the big decisions, there are a few things that we need to look into, but there is still plenty of time till the end of the year.

13. Refurbish the Master Bedroom

We have brought the paint (three different colours and a special little tin of magic), curtains complete with a separate black out lining (what can I say, I like my sleep), curtain pole and funky bedside lamps.  But you will need to wait for the details!

14. Get to grips with the washing pile!

This is endless as most women will know!  Hopefully as the weekends brighten up, I should be able to get more through the machines and dry outside.

15. Do a tour of the house on my blog ;)

Part 1 The Long Awaited Ground Floor Tour! is done and Part 2 the first floor is to follow soon!

16. Read for at least 1 hour a week.

This has been a bit hit and miss, it has probably evened out as when I have been reading its been for a couple of hours so should hopefully make up for the weeks I've missed.  I've also just started reading before I go to bed at The Hut, I always find this a dangerous balance as I'm good at convincing myself that I can't sleep if I'm enjoying a book!  On the plus side, I think it's helping me sleep better!

Currently reading:

Home Book - Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon

This is my third time reading, the latest book - Book 8 Written In My Own Hearts Blood - has just come out so I'm re-reading the series

Hut Book - The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I had heard a lot of good things about this book and am really enjoying it, it's surprisingly funny!

17. Do more on my family tree.

Ooops!

18. Make a patchwork quilt.
I have two quilts in mind, the first is a quilt made up of band tshirts to add a little bit of funky to our current TV watching blankets.  I have a design that I like and just need to have a look through our tshirts to see which can be donated towards it, I already have one only 35 left to go!

The second is from Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine and it is made up of their Block of the Month's.  I have all the back issues that I need now, but I think I might do the tshirt one first.

Well that's my first review done!

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

Netty :)