I cannnot WAIT for it to arrive! With the all white new suite that will be going in and the white walls, I think this'll look rinky dink.
http://www.zazous.co.uk/retro-vinyl-flooring.htm
Wednesday 27 June 2012
DOWNSTAIRS LOO
I just ordered this for the downstairs lavvie.
It's from Zazous and is an authentic French vinyl floor tile called Rose Des Vents.
I cannnot WAIT for it to arrive! With the all white new suite that will be going in and the white walls, I think this'll look rinky dink.
http://www.zazous.co.uk/retro-vinyl-flooring.htm
I cannnot WAIT for it to arrive! With the all white new suite that will be going in and the white walls, I think this'll look rinky dink.
http://www.zazous.co.uk/retro-vinyl-flooring.htm
COLOUR UPDATE
This is out of synch but we've got the decorators in now and I'm seeing paint samples when I close my eyes. He's come earlier than we'd thought and he's doing the whole house and basically said to me this afternoon: 'I need your paint choices tomorrow' when I was doing that funny dithering thing.
After trying every single sample that's anywhere near our idea of a neutral but beautiful wall, we're settling on these:
LIVING ROOM: Flake White by Fired Earth (Kevin McCloud)
I'm also going to use this in our bedroom along with New England Paint (Craig & Rose) in Independence.
After trying every single sample that's anywhere near our idea of a neutral but beautiful wall, we're settling on these:
LIVING ROOM: Flake White by Fired Earth (Kevin McCloud)
Both colours are warmer in Real Life which is what I wanted - do you have any idea how hard it is finding a warm grey that's not taupe or ... is it drab? Will upload pics when I have them.
I'm still not convinced entirely, but we're going for Dulux White Mist in the hallway downstairs and up the stairs and Dulux Grey Steel 3 in the upstairs all. I'm worried they'll be too cold.
That White Mist looks NOTHING like the REAL White Mist which is a bright white with a touch of cool grey. God I hate samples.
Below is Grey Steel 3. These are both really quite ... cool (temperature wise) in Real Life. I'm a bit worried.
Bed 2 & 3 are Pure Brilliant White, Bed 4 is Crown Milk White because that's what I painted it a while ago anyway. Kitchen is white and Dulux Cornflower White So my only other dilemma is the Dining Room. I want to paint it a dark colour on two walls but will that be too ... intense? Are we brave enough to do this???
OUR FIRST BIG JOB - THE ENSUITE
It's interesting that the first things we've tackled have been sanitation based. Interesting and really quite heartening. Having said that, we've only just stripped the downstairs lav of that wallpaper and it still has a green carpet which is probably alive with a thousand of its own cultures. But anyway. Upstairs, we are Sanitation Crazy!
The first thing we did was add an ensuite. RB decided to put this into our built in wardrobes. We stole a foot from Bed 4 - now a small double, but still a double - moved the main door over a little and shaved off the ensuite wall. You'll see what I mean. This meant a more open entrance to the room - before it had been an almost corridor beside the built-in wardrobes - and gave us space on the right to install more wardobes once the bathroom was done (the plan being to steal a foot from the bathroom next door to create those - a year later).
I don't have a before photo of this, but it was pretty much Room With Built-in Wardrobes. This was done by our amazing builder during the intense snows in December 2010. He'd turn up from Ealing (90 minutes away) in a blizzard in his crappy old estate at 7am every morning complaining about what pussies British drivers are. This is it fresh after the build.
Shower was a bargain from Screwfix (I'm not sure they do they anymore, but when we bought it, it was at least £100 cheaper than anywhere else).
And this is now. We've added a cabinet, painted the walls Crown Chalk White and distributed a general film of bathroom dirt. Cabinet is from Ikea.
The basin is a Roca Nexo handbasin with a tap from Victoria Plumb. Phase we think. Toilet Roll holder is from John Lewis and RB has an ongoing crush on it. If it had a pulse, I'd be in trouble...
The tiles are Metro Crackle Glaze Camden in Cream from Tons of Tiles. The grout is gunmetal grey. Getting the paint right to match with those tiles was a Niiiiightmare. We had originally painted it Farrow & Ball Archive which turned out to be really horrible. To use their terminology: a truly awful orangey neutral that makes magnolia look sophisticated. We MUCH prefer the very faintly yellow white of Chalk White. It's SO much less digusting.
Toilet is from First Bathrooms and is a standard corner number.
I love the lights above the mirror - a tiny nod to my little inner drama queen. They're from Homebase. The mirror is John Lewis.
We've got wood flooring in the ensuite - lots of people say that's a no-no, but so far (touch wood - ho ho) we haven't had a problem. It gets a bit gunked up with - bizarrely - hair products but it cleans pretty easily. You have to be a bit more vigilant with water I suppose, but it's worth it: it's warm and it looks just right. From B&Q - solid wood flooring, medium oak.
The bin is model's own.
The first thing we did was add an ensuite. RB decided to put this into our built in wardrobes. We stole a foot from Bed 4 - now a small double, but still a double - moved the main door over a little and shaved off the ensuite wall. You'll see what I mean. This meant a more open entrance to the room - before it had been an almost corridor beside the built-in wardrobes - and gave us space on the right to install more wardobes once the bathroom was done (the plan being to steal a foot from the bathroom next door to create those - a year later).
I don't have a before photo of this, but it was pretty much Room With Built-in Wardrobes. This was done by our amazing builder during the intense snows in December 2010. He'd turn up from Ealing (90 minutes away) in a blizzard in his crappy old estate at 7am every morning complaining about what pussies British drivers are. This is it fresh after the build.
Shower was a bargain from Screwfix (I'm not sure they do they anymore, but when we bought it, it was at least £100 cheaper than anywhere else).
And this is now. We've added a cabinet, painted the walls Crown Chalk White and distributed a general film of bathroom dirt. Cabinet is from Ikea.
The tiles are Metro Crackle Glaze Camden in Cream from Tons of Tiles. The grout is gunmetal grey. Getting the paint right to match with those tiles was a Niiiiightmare. We had originally painted it Farrow & Ball Archive which turned out to be really horrible. To use their terminology: a truly awful orangey neutral that makes magnolia look sophisticated. We MUCH prefer the very faintly yellow white of Chalk White. It's SO much less digusting.
Toilet is from First Bathrooms and is a standard corner number.
I love the lights above the mirror - a tiny nod to my little inner drama queen. They're from Homebase. The mirror is John Lewis.
We've got wood flooring in the ensuite - lots of people say that's a no-no, but so far (touch wood - ho ho) we haven't had a problem. It gets a bit gunked up with - bizarrely - hair products but it cleans pretty easily. You have to be a bit more vigilant with water I suppose, but it's worth it: it's warm and it looks just right. From B&Q - solid wood flooring, medium oak.
The bin is model's own.
SOME WALLPAPER AND SOME TILES WITH FLOWERS ON
It's impossible to describe how frustrating the wallpaper in the hallway was. It wasn't gross so we couldn't pass it off as ironic, and it wasn't ironic so we couldn't pass it off as cool. It was just ... bogglingly boringly naff. And it did things to your eyes that were deeply unpleasant.
These lovely photos (starring the delicious RB) show not just a Man At Work, but give a little peek of the original bathroom (I stupidly didn't photograph it exclusively). We are in the process of replacing these horrible dark wood doors with painted white panel ones because no matter how brilliant you are at painting, these bastards are magnets to fluff and the finish on all of them is akin to painted Fuzzy Felt.
In these photos, I would like you to note:
1. The tiles.
2. The taps shaped like mushrooms. Those 'Shroom taps were like regular taps, but with little plastic hats. I'm not sure why they had them - I'm wondering if at some point they were considered decorative.
Note also the wood-effect lino. And the pointless shelf that took a foot out of the depth of the bathroom for no descernable reason other than ... no, no discernable reason at all.
These lovely photos (starring the delicious RB) show not just a Man At Work, but give a little peek of the original bathroom (I stupidly didn't photograph it exclusively). We are in the process of replacing these horrible dark wood doors with painted white panel ones because no matter how brilliant you are at painting, these bastards are magnets to fluff and the finish on all of them is akin to painted Fuzzy Felt.
In these photos, I would like you to note:
1. The tiles.
2. The taps shaped like mushrooms. Those 'Shroom taps were like regular taps, but with little plastic hats. I'm not sure why they had them - I'm wondering if at some point they were considered decorative.
Note also the wood-effect lino. And the pointless shelf that took a foot out of the depth of the bathroom for no descernable reason other than ... no, no discernable reason at all.
Tuesday 26 June 2012
WHAT'S INSIDE?
These are pictures from the sale brochure. See, it's not hideous. But it's ... you know. The ceilings are artex.
The Kitchen.
It's liveable in - completely. Some people would love the beige laminate worktop and the beige tiles. I don't know any of them, but I'm sure they're out there. It's the sort of colour where if you walked in naked, people would have a hard time distinguishing you from the fittings. Apart from that great obelix of a fridge. That stands alone in the world of appliances.
The Living Room - this is the view towards the communal gardens.
View towards back garden (a view we actually like). The fireplace is a pretend open gasfire with brass surround. It's SHINY.
In our house there are three ceiling lights on the ground floor that have been designed around cut-glass trifle bowls. The ones in the living room have an additional decorative feature in the form of a wood/brass nubbin that makes them look like glass boobs.
I mean: who DOESN'T want cut-glass boobs on their ceiling?
The Kitchen.
It's liveable in - completely. Some people would love the beige laminate worktop and the beige tiles. I don't know any of them, but I'm sure they're out there. It's the sort of colour where if you walked in naked, people would have a hard time distinguishing you from the fittings. Apart from that great obelix of a fridge. That stands alone in the world of appliances.
The Living Room - this is the view towards the communal gardens.
View towards back garden (a view we actually like). The fireplace is a pretend open gasfire with brass surround. It's SHINY.
In our house there are three ceiling lights on the ground floor that have been designed around cut-glass trifle bowls. The ones in the living room have an additional decorative feature in the form of a wood/brass nubbin that makes them look like glass boobs.
I mean: who DOESN'T want cut-glass boobs on their ceiling?
WELCOME TO OUR BIG FAT 1980s HOUSE
We had been dying to move out of London for the whole seven months we'd been together (myself and RB; the cats seemed perfectly content staring out the window onto the Streatham backstreet we lived on). RB is from Winchester and he was longing to raise his family in the leafy middle-class idyll of his youth where our children could build dens in the bushes and shoot fireworks at passing trains, just as he had all those sun-drenched summers ago. As I am the perfect wife, I let him have his way.
What we hadn't counted on is that Winchester is one of the most expensive places in the country to buy and while we had every intention of buying a little piece of chocolate box beautifulness, the fact that anything with a hint of character was about two-hundred grand out of our budget stumped us a little. So, after many, many, m-a-n-y viewings and two false starts, we finally settled on this little 80s beauty because it had four bedrooms, was in our budget, is in a lovely quiet courtyard and because ... well ... we panicked ...
It's not what it looks like. It is in fact U shaped and our house is made up of the first two windows on the right - the Master Bed and the Dining Room - the recess which has the front door (big hall behind) and the Bathroom above, and the next two windows which is Bed 2 and the Living Room. Behind these are two more bedrooms, a downstairs WC and, of course, a kitchen.
The foreground is the communal garden. Our garden starts from the blue-green of the very LEGGY lavender. Note the abundant hydrangea bushes. There were two of them. And they were abundant.
Out back is this:
Note the abundant bulbous bushes. They were abundant. And bulbous. And let's not talk about that island of concrete ...
And the back of the house...
See. Abundant. Bulbous. Bushes.
Windows are: Far Left Bed 4, middle landing, Right Bed 3. Then Kitchen obscured by abundant bush and sliding doors to the Living Room. Yes those are some conifers growing against the back wall. I know.
Next time ... INSIDE!
What we hadn't counted on is that Winchester is one of the most expensive places in the country to buy and while we had every intention of buying a little piece of chocolate box beautifulness, the fact that anything with a hint of character was about two-hundred grand out of our budget stumped us a little. So, after many, many, m-a-n-y viewings and two false starts, we finally settled on this little 80s beauty because it had four bedrooms, was in our budget, is in a lovely quiet courtyard and because ... well ... we panicked ...
It's not what it looks like. It is in fact U shaped and our house is made up of the first two windows on the right - the Master Bed and the Dining Room - the recess which has the front door (big hall behind) and the Bathroom above, and the next two windows which is Bed 2 and the Living Room. Behind these are two more bedrooms, a downstairs WC and, of course, a kitchen.
The foreground is the communal garden. Our garden starts from the blue-green of the very LEGGY lavender. Note the abundant hydrangea bushes. There were two of them. And they were abundant.
Out back is this:
Note the abundant bulbous bushes. They were abundant. And bulbous. And let's not talk about that island of concrete ...
And the back of the house...
See. Abundant. Bulbous. Bushes.
Windows are: Far Left Bed 4, middle landing, Right Bed 3. Then Kitchen obscured by abundant bush and sliding doors to the Living Room. Yes those are some conifers growing against the back wall. I know.
Next time ... INSIDE!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)