Home owners | Travels through a geek's mind

Turning our house into a home: the before & after

In December 2012, we moved into our very own house. As first time home owners, the first week was filled with excitement. The four months following that first week, has been filled with a lot of hard work.

The reward has been worth it though, as this past weekend was the first one since the beginning of December last year that there was no ‘To Do’ list. No more walls to paint. No builders tramping through the house and no more small little things niggling at my conscious to get done.

Well, I’m lying. There was one more thing. It read: “Take and post some before and after photos.”

Done.

Master bedroom

Second bedroom. (Seriously guys, I was not making an extra bed in the house purely for the pics. Sorry!)

Study. The walls were a slighter lighter green that that cabinet.

Study

Lounge. The parquet flooring was in immaculate condition. This is the first time in 47 years that the wood has been exposed, it was covered in carpets as soon as the previous owners moved in.

Kitchen, with lots of space for wine. One can never have enough wine (or books).

Kitchen

Scullery

Pantry

Dining room (we still need a table, so in the meantime you get to look at my amazing Belweb wardrobe)

Bathroom

For those of you who want more info, our work regime was roughly as follows:

Remove all carpets, replace with laminate wood flooring in all bedrooms and study. Sand and varnish parquet floor in lounge, dining area and hallway.
Resurface the bath, basin and toilet (changing the colour of the enamel from blue to white).
Move into the house.
Unpack most of the boxes. Don’t unpack everything, as we’ll have contractors in the house for the next two months.
Remove all curtain pelmets.
[DIY] Paint the bathroom, WC, hallway, master bedroom, lounge, and dining room.
[DIY] Mount curtain rails and hang newly made curtains in lounge (YAY!!).
Pack the kitchen back up and use the study as a temporary kitchen.
Demolish kitchen.
Start replacing the kitchen.
Remove tiles from wall in study.
[DIY] Put cornices up in kitchen.
[DIY] Paint cornices, kitchen walls, study.
Unpack the rest of the boxes, including the kitchen (again).
Build and [DIY] cover frame for TV mount to hide cables.
[DIY] Mount TV-cable-hider-frame and TV (at 2am the night before your housewarming).
Enjoy fabulous new kitchen while preparing food for said housewarming 🙂