What we've done in our house so far

 What we've done in our house so far

On the 13th October 2023, Martin and I got the keys to our first house and became home owners. We lived at our parents houses and used to go between my parents house and Martin's parents house. I want to do a separate post on our house buying process and experience, but firstly I'm going to share what we've done in our house so far. 

We spent the first few weekends and a full week of annual leave from work, redecorating our house before we moved in. We thought since we didn't have to rush to move in, we would decorate before we officially move in and put furniture up.

So far, the only thing we've not decorated is the bathroom and kitchen yet. They aren't to our taste, but we'll do those over time. We painted every other room from top to bottom. The living room, the hallway, landing, bedroom and spare room have had a freshen up. Every one of those rooms except the spare bedroom originally was the same colour and it wasn't our taste at all. We weren't sure what colours we wanted, so the hallway and landing is just white. The bedroom and living room have 3 white walls and a feature colourful wall, which is Crown's Always Orchid Matt paint. I don't really know how to describe the colour but it's kind of pink and in pictures it looks different than in real life. For the spare bedroom, we painted 3 walls white and one wall Dulux's Stonewashed Blue. It's brighter in real life than on the tin, but it's still a nice colour.

As well as the walls, I went around and painted over every piece of dark wood. The banister was dark, so I spent 4 days painting it white. The fitted wardrobes were dark so I spent 3 days painting those white. The fireplace wasn't as dark but I didn't like the wood so I painted it white. Painting the dark wood brightened up the house and although it took me such a long time, I'm so happy with how it turned out. I just hate painting now. I still need to finish painting the wardrobes as we're not putting up 2 out of 4 of the mirrors, but I just can't bring myself to paint again. 

Another thing I painted was a small fence in the front garden that is on a wall that covers the bins. I painted it pink as I didn't like the green. I used Cuprinol's Sweet Pea paint. I haven't quite finished the fence yet as I need to do a couple more coats.

Onto the floor, the carpets in the house on the stairs and landing and both bedrooms, were again, not our taste. They looked like they'd been there for a very long time, so we ripped those up. For our bedroom and the stairs, we chose a really nice grey. We tried to match the stairs and bedroom carpets as much as possible. For the spare bedroom, we went for a grey laminate and I really love it.

In the bedroom, other than the fitted wardrobes, there were fitted cupboards above the bed. I HATED those fitted cupboards from the moment I saw them. On our second day of having the keys, we ripped them down. The bedroom looks a lot more open and nicer without them and I'm glad we got rid of them. 

Another thing we did, once we'd officially moved in, was have our boiler moved. The boiler was in the big cupboard in the spare bedroom and I didn't like the idea of having it in the spare bedroom, so we've had it moved into the loft and I feel so much better about it. We had to suffer one winter night without hot water and heating but it was done quickly in a day and a half and I'm glad it's in the loft. 

Next up we're going to continue to tackle the garden. The garden isn't too bad, but the grass needs cutting again and the decking needs a good clean and painting. We've planted some plants we got from Garsons, but we need to remove the Sold sign that no one ever came for and some other bits and pieces. I think the next thing inside the house to be done is probably paint the kitchen walls, I'd love a new sink as I just hate our white plastic one.

I have a house account on Instagram if you would like to follow at: @emiliabhome