Tag Archive | First Home

I solemnly swear that I am up to no good…

Feb26

I wrote a while ago about some canvases that I was going to put on the Living Room wall. They arrived last week but due to life being so busy I forgot to upload them! I am a massive Harry Potter fan, in fact it is some sort of miracle that the flat is not decorated from top to bottom to resemble Hogwarts. However I could not resist putting a little bit of Harry Potter magic into the living room via the words of the amazing Albus Dumbledore.

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I bought the photos off of Etsy and then had them made into canvases by Photobox. I think they turned out really well and I’m so happy with them! A little bit of Dumbledore wisdom can Always be helpful in many circumstances whether you’re a Harry Potter fan or not.

Mischief Managed.

 

Day 24 -Rehoming Many Ducks

Feb13

Been a very busy 3 days but I have finished unpacking! This includes the 2 boxes of ducks which were very difficult to place. In my old flat I had a lovely cabinet which became a lovely little home to the many ducks I have acquired throughout the years.

However there is no big cabinet in my new flat so I had to get a little bit creative with the duck placement. I actually only started with 1 duck which was a gift from America and then it just kind of grew from there. However they now have a new home.

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I can’t believe how quickly the flat has become so homely. I finally made use of my kitchen the other night and cooked the first proper dinner since I moved in. I have never had a gas cooker before but turns out they are a lot easier to use than I first thought and I think I may even prefer it to the electric one! I was having to unplug the reed lights in the corner before I went to bed as they do not have a switch. However I came home yesterday to find that my parents had bought me a remote control and now all my lights are controlled by remote! I feel a little bit like Albus Dumbledore now. Now I’ve unpacked I can finally settle and enjoy living here. In fact I decided that the last 3 weeks had more than earnt a lovely glass of wine.

Only a few more things to find homes for and life can resume normally 🙂
The saddest part of the last few days was Bobby and Brunch finally being separated. After living together for the past 6 weeks they had struck up quite a lovely friendship as seen in this post here. At least Bobby can come visit as much as he likes.

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Day 20 – We’re Moving!

Feb9

Something very strange happened last night. After a fun filled night of unpacking my life from cardboard boxes everyone went home and left me there. I lived in a rented flat before buying this one so it was not like I have never lived away from home before but it was a bit peculiar. Suddenly I was left in this flat which I’ve spent every waking minute of my life working on for the past 20 days and it’s actually nearly done! The indecisive person has made a decision and I was currently stood in my biggest decision to date. After spending an evening sorting out all of the boring bits including Council Tax, Contents Insurance, TV Licence, Gas and Electric it appears I may actually cope!

Bobby made it into the flat without being wrestled into a pair of doggy boots which he seemed very happy about. Sadly Bobby won’t be able to come live with me as he would be at home on his own all day while I was at work and it really wouldn’t be fair. Luckily for me though he can come visit all the time now I don’t have a “no pet” rule! I have at least one seal of approval on the carpet though as he took to laying on the carpet rather than his blanket! Brunch however did move in last night and seems to have settled in very well by the TV. He was definitely not very happy on the drive over or the trip up the stairs though, hopefully he has recovered from that trauma now 🙂

I’m so glad I waited for the living room and bedroom to be more or less finished before I moved in. Hopefully in a week or so I will have unpacked everything and it really will start to feel like home. I dashed to Argos after work and got those reed lights to go in the corner of the room as it looked really strange with nothing there and I think they’ve fitted in beautifully!

I woke up this morning and found myself making my bed with extreme precision and ever so carefully lining my shampoo and conditioners up in the shower. Not too sure what has happened to me but I think I may have turned into my mother.

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This lovely little creature had no trouble making himself feel at home though!

Day 18 – Quest for Onion Bhaji

Feb8

The past three days have been spent unpacking my life from the previous two homes (the parentals and mine) to the lovely new little flat. I had no idea I owned so much stuff! I am on day three of unpacking at the moment and it actually looks like I have a home now which is very exciting! I cannot wait until this is all done and I can go back to my very much needed 8 hours of sleep a night and catch up on about a months worth of Eastenders!.

The worst thing about unpacking is the fact that you have no idea where to even begin or where anything is. I also found myself thinking I owned things when I actually did not. Food choices have been very limited to whatever I can find in the shop over the road as I have not had anything here to cook with. However I had moved the kitchen stuff in so decided to treat myself to an Indian snack selection (think samosa, onion bhaji, little potato thing with peas in). This meant I could snack and still unpack (ooh little bit of rhyming there!) without having to stop unpacking or snacking. (Sorry, again!). I come back from the shop armed with snack selection, pop the oven on and go to put the snacks on a baking tray. Baking tray… Where are you baking tray?

Turns out I do not own a baking tray. Why do I not own a baking tray? All the baking trays at my old flat belonged to the landlord at my old flat and I never bothered to get any more as they were perfectly functional for baking stuff like the name suggests. So I am now stood in my kitchen with no way to cook what I had just bought. The samosas and other bits I could have happily lived without but not the onion bhaji so I decided to adapt and use the microwave even though there was no microwave options on the packaging. I was not to be defeated by the lack of a baking tray!

I pop the snack selection on to one of my new square plates. I remember writing about these plates saying how much I had always wanted square plates. Turns out this was also a no go. Due to the squareness of the square plate it could only rotate 45 degrees in the microwave before getting stuck and rotating back 45 degrees in the other direction. My quest for onion bhaji was not going to plan.

Upon the removal from the microwave I was very disheartened to discover that due to the microwave’s inability to rotate I had a lovely little selection of really badly cooked snacks. Some were hot, some were cold, most were soggy and I think one may have been a bit burnt. Not even my craving for an onion bhaji was enough to make that taste nice.

So what was the first thing I did today? Bought a bloody baking tray! Well actually I bought three!

Day 15 – Nearly looking like a Home!

Feb4

Hello! I have spent the past few days either getting a little bit tipsy at a work conference or recovering from the self induced tipsiness. As a result my lovely little flat has been a little bit neglected for the past two days. However today it definitely got an awful lot of love! Over the past two weeks I have been so happy with the flat as it is everything I have worked for over the past 8 years but I walked into it today after the carpet had been laid and it actually looks like a home now. I am completely unashamed to admit that I cried! I’m just going to let the pictures speak for themselves as I am completely besotted with my new home!

I am so happy with the choice of carpet, it is so soft and lovely to walk on and the colour really compliments the paint colours on the walls. The stairs are a plum stripe which I love. I never thought I’d have a stripey carpet but then my parents had stripey carpet put up their stairs and I actually really liked it so took inspiration! The carpet still needs a few more hoovers but the living room has come together so well. I came back from work today and got the surprise of a lovely TV stand in the living room! My parents went and got it while I was at work. Walking into the living room and just seeing it complete was lovely, they really have worked so hard for me today. We just need to now get a nice big mirror for above the dining table and a nest of tables and the living room is done!

So if you ever come to visit me it is shoes off to protect my lovely new carpet! I am wondering how far I can take this and have found myself looking at little booties and converse for dogs online. Check these out:

Dogs don’t wear shoes outside, so maybe the answer here is for him to wear shoes inside! He would hate me too much I think… Bobby you can be an exception to the shoe rule.

Day 12 – Lets go Build a Light

Feb1

Remember the lovely little IKEA hanging pendant lamp?

Exhibit A on the left is how the light is supposed to look. Exhibit B is how it looks when you open the box. Today I felt was the perfect day to build the Death Star Lamp. Armed with a Malibu and Coke and 3 trusted friends (1 human, 2 animal) we decided to build the light.

I was expecting the worst. Assembling things is not my forte but this little light actually surprised me. Everything clicked nicely together and within 5 minutes a star was born.

Turns out however that at the flat there was nothing to hook the light to on the ceiling and the old light was literally just hanging there. If I hung this light through that hole in the ceiling and pulled the cord to open or shut the light there was a high chance of the whole thing falling on my head. No worries though because I have a Dad who’s pretty good and this whole DIY stuff and he managed to go up into the loft, and install something more sturdy for me to hang my Death Star from.

Look it works!! It also makes some really pretty patterns on the walls the the ceilings. Definitely a new take on adjustable lighting, no dimmer switches needed here!

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Do excuse the naked stairs!  I am away with work now until Friday so sadly no more house related work until Friday/Saturday 😦 But hopefully by next update there will be carpet on those stairs! Fingers crossed!

Days 9&10 – Lights!

Jan30

So much to do before Friday! I think once we get the carpet in the whole flat will suddenly come together and start to feel homely. Maybe then I can finally move in without walking dust around constantly.

My lovely little spider lights from B&Q have been put up and I think they look pretty good. Managed to get the one in the living room to be dimmable even if I did make the mistake of buying awful light bulbs from the Range. Can be replaced later though so won’t worry too much now.

I googled the Karli lights just out of curiosity to see if they did any other similar lights or accessories. Out of some stroke of luck I stumbled across these lovely little bedside lamps! I was going to go for purple lamps but when I saw these it just had to be done. I think this has pleased my parents as I was going to take the lamps from my old room at their house as they were the perfect lamps and exactly what I had in mind. However they now get to keep those and I will not be branded a lamp thief!

The room is so much lighter now than it was when I moved in. This could have something to do with the fact I now have 22 light bulbs in the room instead of just 2! Could you call that a little bit excessive? At least no one can say my room is too dark and I don’t need to use all 22 at the same time I suppose! Very thankful for my IKEA bulbs! On the subject of IKEA I went to put up my light for the hallway today.

I was very naively expecting to unpack a nice spherical light out of that box but looking at the size of the box in relation to the size of the light I really should have known better. IKEA hanging pendant light is currently in about 8493625 different pieces. I decided that the light could go back into the box and be tackled another day. When that day will be I am not too sure.

Today was mainly about odd jobs. I helped build the furniture for the downstairs bedroom. We got this furniture online as a lot consisting of 2 bedside tables, a dressing table, chest of drawers and a wardrobe and its really good stuff! Sadly couldn’t get any pics of the rest as most of the furniture for the flat has been moved into this room ready for the carpet to be laid and I can barely move in there at the moment but the dressing table is stunning! I just need to get a chair for the dressing table and we are all done in here. Such a contrast from the kids room it was just over a week ago.

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The shelves also got put up today and now the living room is starting to really come together. I’m looking at a few coffee tables at the moment but am leaning towards a nest of tables instead for space saving purposes. I have a coffee table in my rented flat at the moment which made me think that I needed one, but my parents have a nest of tables which gets used a hell of a lot more than the coffee table does and they are pretty cute! I dragged the dining room table to the flat tonight just to try and figure out where everything will go and I think I have a plan in my head now so hurry up carpet so I can have a functional living room!

As we are getting the internet and TV installed tomorrow I had to decide really quickly where everything was going as I don’t want to be moving cables around once they are installed at one end of the room. Fingers crossed it was the right choice! I have accidentally managed to order myself two lots of internet and TV though so I really hope they only turn up with one! Most importantly only charge me for one!

Day 7 – Reconstructing the Kitchen

Jan28

Day 7 is being posted on Day 8 due to a very important charity event which required an early night last night! Post on this to follow!

After previously being banned from the flat I was finally allowed back in as all the glossing and painting is done. The only room which does not require much more work doing to it is the kitchen. As I do not have much time left off work I decided to use this day to clean my kitchen and move everything into it. I had no idea quite how therapeutic and actually quite enjoyable this would be.

Here is what the kitchen looked like before.

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I wanted to keep the kitchen itself very neutral and put colour into it by accessorising. I am aware that I have bought a lot of little things that I like but I am not actually sure how it is all going to look like together. It took me about 2 hours to deep clean the kitchen but it was so worth it to be able to move my stuff in

Not much of an update today but I’m glad I managed to move some stuff in as it is starting to feel more like home already. Turns out I have a lot of storage! It is nice not to have to be cramming things into cupboards to store them and to have everything neatly put where I want it to be. Everyone told me I had maybe bought too many glasses, however considering how lovely they fit in the cupboard I disagree! I was one of those naive glass people when I went glass shopping, I did not even know that there were different glasses for red wine and white, but now I do! I got all my glasses from Morrisons and I love them :). I always said that when I moved I would get square plates and bowls and I was lucky enough to get this lovely little set from Santa this year! I still need to get a cover for the end of the worktop but apart from that things are looking pretty good in the kitchen.

In other exciting news I got my first “New Home” card today from my Nan along with this lovely little wine holder (and the bottle in it!) which has pride of place by the kitchen window. The only quandary I have now is which wine glass to use!