The Befores and the Afters...

Good Afternoon!

Whilst I'm planning the next change (I think it's going to be the bedroom, I'm itching to at least paint in there...) I thought I'd share some before shots of the current place.  When we moved into our current apartment, we had furniture that was cheap, begged, stolen or borrowed.  In the case of our sofa, it was a 2 seater borrowed from my in-laws.  It was so small my husband and I could barely sit on it at the same time.  This wasn't a problem in the old place, as we had 2 and a half rooms.  One room for sleeping and officing, one room for bathrooming (the 'half' room) and one room for everything else.

In our current flat, we found we had so much room that we didn't even use the dining room for a while as we found our feet.  Slowly though (and we have been there a couple of years now) we've got things just right, with a balance of the cosy that we were used to, and the open and airy that we aspired to.  It's interesting too, to see how our style hasn't really 'changed' as such, but has instead become a little more 'refined'.  The walls are essentially the same colours, the same basic shapes in the furniture but just a little more subtle and grown up, although saying that, we do have the biggest sofa in the world and I jump on it sometimes.

Now to think about the bedroom!

Calm new living room!

Good Afternoon.

As promised, here are the 'After' pictures of the newly painted living room (and kitchen, I suppose).

It feels so much softer and calmer in here now.  I made a trip to the big Swedish box today to get the second lampshade so that they both matched.  This made me happy.

Redecorating the living room

Good evening all,

We decided to redecorate the living room, get rid of the one dark grey wall and go for a softer grey all over.  After spending days agonising over the exact shade, hue and intensity of grey (seriously, who knew there so may greys!) we came to a decision and headed off to Homebase to get it mixed.  Obviously we came home with something else.

The colour we chose was called 'night jewels 5' by Dulux, but we picked up a tub of Once in Chic Shadow instead.  What can I say, I'm impatient.  Here's the obligatory 'before' shot...

Most of the walls are white, but the one behind the TV was a dark grey shade called 'Smoulder' by Crown Paints.  It's been that colour for a couple of years now and needed freshening up, so we decided to change it up completely and brighten the room up a bit.  Last night everything went back to 'moving-day white'...

In an homage to Red Dwarf, we changed it from Dowdy old 'Ocean Grey' to crisp new 'Military Grey'...

And here's the completed paintwork!  We're still putting the room back together, so I'll stick up some pictures of the room tomorrow, but for now hopefully this gives an idea of the changes...We've moved some of the prints around too, and the whole room just looks so much less cluttered.

More pictures tomorrow!  

A bit late, but...

Merry Christmas and a happy new year everyone!  I thought I should share my Christmas decorations with everyone.  I always struggle to find a Christmas tree that I'm happy with-this year we went for a 5'5" Nordman Fir, and I'm pleased to report that it hardly dropped any needles and stayed green and verdant for the whole three weeks we've had it up.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Glimpse!

Right then...

I suppose it's only fair that I offer a glimpse into my home, as it is now.  I'm pretty happy with my living room at the moment-I love my sideboard.  From what I gather, it was made in Portsmouth (local) in the 50's by a company called White and Newton.  We got it in a local charity shop for £50 and managed to get it home in the back of a Fiat Punto!

It took a bit of polishing, but we got there in the end.  Other than the floor, it's the only wood we have in the living room, so it helps to warm things up a bit.