A Colour Crisis

As i am sure you gathered from my previous post, or if you are a follower on Instagram, my color pallet for my house is largely neutral with lots of textures thrown in. As my sister kindly put it my house is 50 shades of grey, but not in the kinky way!

I thought I would put together a wish list of cushions, I am definitely not going to get all of them if any but this is the kind of thing I meant when I said new cushions as I feel the other ones are the wrong tones and are looking a bit shabby.

Cushion Collage

Aren’t these cushions just to die for? Obviously it would not be my house if i did not squeeze an elephant in somewhere! The lounge is actually one of the few rooms in our house without an elephant in. Although I’m not sure I can justify £45 on an elephant cushion, can I? I think I have a problem! Elephants anonymous where you at?

Whilst discussing the cushion saga with Kieran, a saga because I made reference too it in my blog and I buy far too many cushions as it is,we decided that we should put more colour into our house as the moment downstairs is sage green, grey and cream and upstairs is blush pink, grey and cream. We want to paint our dining room table and chairs, but are toying with painting the chairs bright colours. We are having a colour crisis. My idea was to paint them bright like the ones featured on A Beautiful Mess. I have literally been obsessed with this table since we decided to move out. However I am not sure we are quite ready to take the bold step with this yet! We are going to tie in the kitchen to the dining room and paint them sage green I think. What are your thoughts? Keep your eyes peeled for an update on this!

How very dramatic! We had a bit of a crisis in confidence of our styling of our house. I love our house but I am constantly finding new things to do, there is always something I want to tweak slightly, some new thing I have seen that I would like to make. I think most people think I am stark raving mad as our house is gorgeous and is loaded with style with a pinch of our personality.

Keep your eyes peeled for a Kitchen tour next week!

Keep Smiling my lovelies.

Living Room Tour

Finally after promising you guys for so long! I have begun the first in my series of room tours…. my living room! Let me just put this out there before I show you the details of my living room, I am no photographer so some of the images aren’t the best but I’m sure you’ll forgive me for that one, won’t you?

Firstly we have our sofa and chairs, they are from DFS and are literally the comfiest sofas I have ever sat on. I’m not 100% sold on the cushions so may need to find some alternatives. Kieran if you are reading this ignore that bit tehehe. Apart from the Botany Illustrations cushion which I have been in love with ever since I saw it in home sense. The record player was a present a moving in present to ourselves it just sets off the room wonderfully, yes it does actually work we just need to get a new needle for it and smaller records. Of course it would not be my living room if I didn’t have a billion and 1 candles everywhere.

This is my gorgeous fire place. I just love it, the antlers they were one of Kieran’s birthday present from The Weird and Wonderful. If you haven’t heard of them before and are into taxidermy/entomology or anything like that definitely check them out. Can we all just take a moment to celebrate my succulent is growing! I thought I had killed it but obviously not as it has glorious green shoots. Yes, I definitely danced around my house when I realised. I actually painted a normal terrocotta pot rather than paying the price of an expensive bronze pot. We’re debating painting the wooden fire surround but i’m not totally 100% sold on that idea yet. What do you think?

This is actually one of my favourite corners of our living room. Totally sad as it is just tucked away by the door, but its our little welcome table where I put my keys when I walk in the house as I can lean in and dump them in the oliver bonas dish, which I dont think they sell anymore. Anyway I digress every time I walk in the house I see the picture of one of the happiest days of my life (so far) and makes me smile. I also love my basket filled with blankets. If you are yet to feel the joys of a bunny soft blanket then get yourself to home sense, you will not regret it. I promise.

My coffee table! I didn’t get a very good picture of this before we painted so unfortunately I have had to use one I took before we paint so lets just use our imaginations that either side of the chimney breast are a glorious grey not ugly gold floral wallpaper. We up cycled two old trunks that we found at Malvern Flea Market they really set the room off perfectly now that we have exposed the original wooden floor boards and got a cowhide rug. It is sooo soft.

What room would you like to see next? I would love to see your upcycling projects use the #sophieupcycles on twitter and instagram to show me your projects!

Keep Smiling my Lovelies.

Home update

Moving into our own little house these past few months has been a steep learning curve for Kieran and I. We keep getting lots of questions, like how does it feel? What is it like spending all your time together?

We already lived together at Kieran’s Mum and Dads so in a way we are luckier than most. We don’t have to learn each others annoying habits, as when you spend 3 years living in one room with someone, you soon learn to love their annoying habits. For example Kieran’s annoying, but also endearing, habit of tapping all the time. In a way this was helpful as we already knew how to muck in together, get on with things and how to work around each other.

One bone of contention is who does what, we now like to think things are equal but I will be the first to admit I am pinickity. I like things to be just right, I cannot stand mess and feel anxious when mess is around. One of our major rows when we first moved in was over the way Kieran hung a towel. Yes a towel! I’m sure you can imagine how hilarious we find this now.

There is nothing I like more than putting a vinyl on and cleaning, dancing round the house with my bottle of bleach. Oh yes! Did I mention that I sing at the top of my lungs, and that I cannot sing? I feel sorry for my neighbours/Kieran.

Just look how glorious our orignal entryway floor is. Do you have any suggestions as to how to get it looking less dull?

We both work away from home so we aren’t under each others feet all day everyday. We now enjoy coming home and just sitting on our sofa. Our sofa that we own. I’m not sure when the novelty will wear off.

We have had to learn to budget tighter, pay bills, develop a sense of style and try and keep up some sort of social life, all whilst on a tight budget and planning a wedding! We definitely don’t do things by halves.

One area I simply added our own style and taste to was the bathroom, I used a little basket and filled it with flannels and other daily toiletries. The basket was actually given to us as part of a very thoughtful gift containing a tea towel, tea, jam, piklets and a little leon breakfast cookbook! I’d definitely recommend anyone to do this for a first time buyer housewarming gift. It was such a lovely and thoughtful gift. Next I added fake flowers as I am not anywhere near garden savy enough yet to grow my own, that is the next job on the to do list.

Our next projects-

Decorate the kitchen

Spruce up the Garden.

Would you like to see updates on these?

Keep smiling my lovelies

We’re moving!

Let’s just take a minute to celebrate the fact that after 3 years with living with Kieran’s mum and dad we are finally moving out into our own place!

I’m so frickin’ excited it’s beyond belief! This dream has been over a year in the making, we’ve lost 2 houses and had many ups and downs along the way.

Almost a year ago to the very day, Kieran and I, had scrimped and saved to get the 5% deposit we would need to by our perfect starter home. We began to look at houses, but where to begin!?
Firstly we created a list of things we would of liked the house to have, 3 bedrooms but would settle for 2, a house not a flat, a drive or good street parking. Now looking at this small list it is very vague! Fortunately Kieran and I have very similar tastes when it comes to houses, and interior.

I think we saw every kind of house imaginable, we weren’t even being picky about what kind of house we viewed!! We viewed the house of nightmares, grimy, dark, dank, every nasty descriptive word imaginable. There were coke bottles littered everywhere. The owner kept telling us that if we came back on the weekend everything would be tidy. What was he going to do get a team of deep cleaners!? That particular house was too much for us to handle and firmly made me realise I wanted something that would need purely cosmetic issues solving.

House number 1 was a cute little 3 bedroom house, with no storage, and a sage green kitchen. We were in love, it ticked all the boxes, had enough charm for us to be able to add our unique style to the place and had enough cream walls that very little needed painting. Oh how I love a neutral colour scheme! We put our offer in but were gazumped. Still in love with the word but hate the outcome. We raised our bid and was successful! We were so ecstatic. A house of our very own. We mentally bought all of the furniture.

It wasn’t meant to be. The owners pulled out of the sale.

House number 2 was a huge 3 bedroom house, with stunning views which looked out all the way to Malvern! I was in love. It had hideous orange carpets with matching orange and black wallpaper. The owners had a serious taste bypass, but I couldn’t wait to decorate. Again, another house with a sage green accent kitchen. But alas this house was not meant to be either, it was off again on again for over 6 months. One minute we couldn’t get a mortgage, the next we could. There was something wrong in the reports, the next there wasn’t. Honestly we would of got an A for effort in getting this house. Everything that went wrong in a buying process did. It wasn’t until right at the very end we found out there is old mines really close to the property which meant the property was likely for subsidence. That was the last straw.

House number 3 is a gorgeous Victorian terrace, with original wooden flooring, high ceilings, original doors and 2 log fires. We have hit the jackpot on our house hunting experience! It is also decorated almost exactly to our taste and guess what? It has a sage green accent kitchen! I think it must be destiny.

We move in on Monday! How exciting, I have bought numerous items to fill the house in, golourious fabrics to make curtains and cushions and up-cycled old items of furniture.

This is my new coffee table. I have painted it in a light grey, polished the brassware and there is a glass top to go on but it is in a very safe place whilst we move.

Have you got any moving tips for me? Or been to view some funny houses? Share your stories with me I’d love to read them!

Keep smiling my lovelies