Our new house: 1 year later

We bought our house last July. After many years of renting, getting the keys to our new home was a very emotional moment for both of us. Even though the house needed a fair amount of work done to suit our needs and aesthetics, it was love at first sight and the beginning of a great adventure.

There's still many things needing done, replaced or refreshed here. We have a tight budget and have only been able to do so much. But the house is definitely liveable; we have done a great deal of painting (the previous owners had painted the master bedroom blood-red; we changed it to soothing blue. The living room was 3 different shades of metallic paint; it's now all white with just 1 grey accent wall), we've replaced dark wooden blinds with light curtains, but the biggest change has happened in the garden. A big chunk of it has been transformed into a very productive fruit & vegetable garden; the pond has been removed (for safety reasons - we loved it otherwise!), the back fence has been replaced; part of the monoblock has been removed (and partially used to build a BBQ). We won't stop there - we still have a few projects in mind :-)

This was our living room a year ago (note the silver, gold and purple metallic paint):

And here it is now:

The garden last July:

And today:

We still need to replace the carpets throughout the house; hire somebody to paint the staircase (the only bit of painting we can't do ourselves); in a few years time - replace the kitchen; maybe one day install a wood burner in the living room.. I could go on. It will take us years to do it all, but it's an awesome journey and we've been loving every part of it!

Utility room makeover

Ever since we bought this house I've been planning to re-do my kitchen. Not that it's bad at the moment, but the dark cabinets make the whole room look really dingy, and the granite-effect worktops mean that I can never tell whether they're dirty or not, it's impossible to see any splashes among all the ''granite'' spots. My dream kitchen has to be white with wooden worktops... But that is not going to happen any time soon as we need to save up for it first.

Now my utility room is a different story. It had the same cabinets and worktops as my kitchen, and was just as dark. But because it's ''only'' a utility room, I thought I would give it a try and transform it cheaply into something resembling the ideal. If it turned out horrible, I would have just keep the door shut and nobody would have to look at it really. But it actually turned out pretty well - and in total I only spent around £40. I bought two tubs of furniture paint, two rolls of wood-effect sticker type thing and a few metres of fabric.

And here's how it turned out!

From this...

To this!

Cats' litter trays and recycling bins are now out of sight

Worktop before

Worktop after

I even made simple little blinds

It still houses my washing/cleaning supplies, recycling bins, gardening stuff and cat's litter trays, and so it will never be pristine, but it feels a lot brighter and cleaner now, and I enjoy using it a lot more now.