[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1422543195393{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]I’m going to focus on retro style in this post, and I’ll start with an important part of the living room: a sofa. When it comes to choosing a sofa, I guess I’m quite practical. I would always choose something fairly neutral and classic in style, so that if you want to change the rest of the room at a later date then you can keep the sofa you have. These Mission fabric sofas in Mink would be perfect – easy to accessorise, they will go with anything! They would fit in with so many styles too, particularly with a retro feel.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”6873″ alignment=”center” border_color=”grey” img_link_target=”_self” img_size=”large”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1422543286587{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]

These lovely geometric print cushions would be great on these sofas. I really like the combination of fresh colours that are used here – perfect for spring and summer! You could easily pick out any of these colour and find other accessories to match too.

Geometric prints are still big this year, so why not mix and match your geometrics too?

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You could always team up these sofas with a feature chair. This teal chair from Next would compliment the choices I have made so far in this post:[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”6881″ border_color=”grey” img_link_target=”_self” img_size=”large”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1422543107678{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]But I am in love with this vintage 50s chair – it would add an extra pop of colour and would fit in brilliantly with the retro style! And I think one of those cushions would look great on this chair.

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1422543080083{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]You might already have some chairs that could be revamped or you could look out for some at a vintage fair or car boot sale. Why not give it a go yourself? Match the retro look with some vintage paint! These colours are just beautiful.

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1422543055748{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]Don’t be afraid to mix old with new when it comes to retro. Look out for pieces that you can renovate yourself – eBay is always a good source for this! But there are new retro pieces available if you prefer, such as this gorgeous sideboard. Sometimes you hear the word ‘sideboard’ and immediately think about flowery plates and doilies on display in your Granny’s house, but they are such useful pieces of furniture. If you go for something classic in style it will be a piece of furniture that you have forever! Use it for storing things away and for displaying some cool and quirky items, and the style of it can change as your style changes. Fab![/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1422543003077{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]If you’ve seen my post about styling our kitchen then you’ll know that storage is key for me, and it’s no different in our living room. This storage would be perfect – the different sizes and shapes of the shelves are great for storing different things and the style and wood finish would compliment the retro look (from Not On The High Street):

Ladder shelves are big this year too – this one from Garden Trading would be a good investment.

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1422542897012{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]Another thing that I’d love to do in the living room would be to create a fun feature wall with these lovely glass frames – I like the mix of different sizes here, and it’s good to be able to change the photos or prints when you fancy a change. It’s an easy way to be able to make little changes in your room.

Photos and prints are a great way to add pops of colour. These Jeremy harnell prints are brilliant! The Boom Box and Mix It Up prints are both from John Lewis.[/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” interval=”3″ images=”6879,6878″ onclick=”link_no” custom_links_target=”_self” column_number=”2″ grayscale=”no” choose_frame=”default” img_size=”large”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1422542777785{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]There’s one more thing to have if you’re going retro – an LP player! We gave our old one (which is not as stylish as this Crosley one from Urban Outfitters) to my Dad and he loves it. A happy home with lots of music is always a good thing, and this is in keeping with the retro style and can be made into a feature. It would look great on that sideboard!

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1422543534649{padding-bottom: 40px !important;}”]I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post! I’m not sure when we’ll get around to doing our living room, but it has been fun to look at the retro trend for 2015. Have you got any DIY projects planned this year?

Please note: This post is written in association with Furniture Choice. All opinions are my own, and I received a Not On The High Street voucher for taking part in the project. Links to products have been provided and each link also provides photo credits.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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So the kitchen project is a really big deal for us – it’s the biggest project we’ve ever undertaken and it’s the first thing we’ve ever done from scratch with a blank canvas. I’ll be honest, it’s pretty scary! The budget wasn’t limitless and you don’t realise how much things are going to cost. This is amplified when you’re buying everything at once too! You want to make the right decisions, you don’t want to waste money, and there are some things that you decide that you really don’t want to compromise on. My friend Donna has a mantra that she lives by, which is ‘save and splurge’. She told me this before we started, and it’s so true! Save on things where you can so that you can splash out on certain things that you really don’t want to compromise on. When it comes to work like this, this is the best piece of advice ever – thank you, Donna!

I love looking through magazines/blogs/Pinterest at home styling and ideas for the home, and I often see things and think that we could make it work in our house too. But every home is different and a lot of things just wouldn’t work in ours. Although I really love having a nosey in people’s houses, one thing that bugs me a little bit about styled interiors photos is that I’m wondering what it looks like behind the camera! Just where do they put all that extra stuff?! I’d love to know! Anyway, we spent a lot of time chatting about what we thought the kitchen should look like. When it came to selecting the kitchen fittings, we discovered that we both found it easier to list what we didn’t like than what we did. Tom doesn’t like Bristol sinks (gutted – I really love them!) and I didn’t want anything too dark or old-fashioned. We had a little look around (and also at our friend’s new kitchen) and decided that we really loved the glossy units, especially the ones with curved corners. They are just so beautiful! We found the one we chose in Howdens, which is a trade-only company (lots of builders have an account there, so ask if you are planning this too).

We had a list of things that we wanted from the new kitchen, which included more storage (see below!), more workspace and more light. Our old kitchen was really dreary at night with its one little light! I also had two things that I really wanted: a range cooker and a dishwasher. Tom wasn’t so fussed about the dishwasher – we put it on the maybe list because if we couldn’t afford both then I would rather have the cooker every time! Howdens have a kitchen designing service, and they did a brilliant job of making the best of the new space. I’ve realised that functionality is a big part of our style – it needs to work for us and we need storage space! We have discovered that generally we have the same style too, although I’m probably a bit more adventurous than Tom when it comes to colour. Our kitchen will reflect that – we’ll have pops of colour but it will be predominantly neutral, but this will make it light and bright. Yay!

It has been weird having to make decisions about fixtures and fittings when we’re not used to thinking about stuff like that. The builders have been asking me things over the last couple of weeks about how we want things to be or look, and I’ve been like ‘Erm…’ – it’s mad really because we’ve had so long to think about it! It’s really fun to be at this point choosing the final things to go in there. Who knew that things like spotlight covers could be so exciting?! I can’t wait to share the finished kitchen with you! Although 5 years seems like a long time to have not done a lot to our house, I am so glad we’ve had that time to live here and find out what works and what doesn’t so that we could plan and think about what we really want to do. A lot of planning went into it, and I’m pretty sure it will be worth it!

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There were so many people working on our kitchen that day – the plasterers and electricians were here in addition to the usual team working on it. The tiler came over to discuss what we’re having and the cooker was delivered too. And in the middle of that I was doing my marking…crazy!

We took some photos on Tuesday after the builders had gone and it was brilliant to see the size of the new kitchen. I’m fairly good at imagining things, but the space feels much bigger than I thought it would. It’s so light with the big windows too – our front window is 182cm wide!

Since then it has been all go – the plasterers and electricians were even here yesterday (Saturday)! Our kitchen was delivered yesterday too, so that is going to be fitted this week. There are so many boxes in the kitchen now! We also have lights, which is just amazing – it means I can take better photos after they have finished for the day too haha

I spotted this on the box of handles – this is a musician’s joke, haha!

The rendering has been finished outside too. Pebble dash isn’t the prettiest thing in the world, but we had to have it so that it matched the rest of the house. As much as I’d like to paint it, I know that once we do it’s a job we’ll have to do every other year or so and I’d rather spend the money on something else to be quite honest! So this matches the house perfectly.

So, all of the construction side of things is complete now and there’s just a week to go! Can you believe it?! The kitchen will be fitted from tomorrow and the decorator is coming on Thursday. There’s just one thing that will have to wait until the week after, and that’s the tiling (because the tiler was fully booked this week). We’ve decided that we’re just going to have tiles for a splash back now, so it’s a small-ish job for the week after. I can’t actually believe we’ve got to this point! I’ll share some more photos with you next week…exciting!

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The floor joists went in last week too, again with lots of insulation between them. It felt really good to walk on the floor of the new bit of the kitchen – I know that might be weird, but it was!

This week, we were hoping that the windows would be fitted. A different company is fitting them, and despite our best efforts to get things scheduled in advance, they are delayed until next week. This doesn’t seem like a huge setback, but we were ahead on the build (!!) so it is a little frustrating. There is plenty to get on with though, so this week some plasterboard has been fitted in the new bit, and our old kitchen units have started to disappear!

The other bit of steel is now on the inside as you can see! It is definitely out of action now, so it’s a good job we moved everything out last weekend. We even have a little tea corner in our living room now – this is the most important area as far as I’m concerned!

The way through to our hallway has been knocked through this week too. It feels so much bigger in the hall now, which I didn’t really expect! The stud wall has been removed and we have gained a couple of extra feet of space, but it feels like so much more than that. Maybe it’s the light? Who knows?! We’ll have a proper cupboard under the stairs here too, which will be great. I should point out that the horrid saloon doors will be gone soon too – yay! Here’s a ‘before’ shot:

And a ‘during’ shot:

An ‘after’ shot will follow over the next couple of weeks!

So we are ready and waiting for the windows, and it’s all systems go next week. The construction should be finished by next Friday, and the new units should arrive a week on Monday…so it should all be complete by the end of the month! Yippee!

We’re choosing tiles, paint and lights this weekend – I’m probably more excited about this than I should be haha! Hope you have a great weekend, whatever you’re up to

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I am SO excited that our latest project is finally happening – it has been well over a year in the making, but this week we are finally starting our kitchen renovation! I can’t believe we are starting really, although having spent most of this weekend packing up our kitchen, I really should by now… 

Let me tell you a bit about how we got started with this project. When we bought our house (which we have now been in for almost 5 years) we had intentions to reconfigure some bits of it, starting with the kitchen. At the end of last year we had our plans drawn up and submitted to the council, and planning was approved early this year. Then it took us ages to find a builder – have you ever tried to find one?! You’d think that it would be relatively straightforward, but no. We were let down by several at the quote stage (never a good sign!) but had been told that getting 3-4 quotes would be a good idea. This is right of course, but it was slightly frustrating to have watched several months pass by waiting to hear back from various people, only to choose the first one! Hindsight is a wonderful thing! But this way we have chosen a builder who we are very happy with, so it was worth it.

We were hoping to start the work over the summer, but by the time we had chosen our builder he was booked up into early autumn. The weather has delayed things slightly, but we are just so happy to be starting! Although we have got planning permission for a two-storey extension, our budget only allows us to do the ground floor at the moment. We currently have a garage at the side of the house, which will be knocked down and rebuilt with sturdier foundations, and then one of the walls in the current kitchen will be knocked through.

Our kitchen renovation: a few ‘before’ photos

I thought I would take some ‘before’ shots to show you – this was the kitchen yesterday as we started to pack things up:

As you can see, we don’t currently have much workspace…or cupboard space – this is it. We’ll be doubling the number of cupboards we have, which will mean no more keeping loads of stuff on the worktops – yay! We were trying to work out how old these units are, and we think they might be the original ones. They are Schreiber units and have obviously lasted a long time, and we think they must be at least 20-25 years old. So they have served the house well! I remember when we moved in we were really hoping that the previous owners would leave the cooker (because we didn’t have any money left to buy one), and thankfully they did! I have often wondered if it would last long, but it has kept going for us. We’ll be very glad to have a new one with a fully-functioning grill though – the one in our previous rented flat didn’t work either, so we haven’t had one for about 8 years!

This is the door to the garage, and it is this wall (the one with the wall units) that will be demolished to make one big kitchen. You may be wondering why we have got our fridge freezer squashed in here – it is because we used to have it in the garage, but one really cold winter it stopped working because it was too cold out there! There is a cupboard behind the fridge freezer, which will be knocked through so that the kitchen can be accessed from the hall as well as the living room.

The garage currently has a downstairs toilet, but as it is generally inhabited by spiders and woodlice we’re getting rid of it (and also because we never really use it, and the space for the kitchen would be more practical really).

So, that’s the ‘before’ tour done! Hopefully I’ll be able to share some progress photos of our kitchen renovation with you soon…please pray/keep your fingers crossed/make a wish (delete as applicable!) for dry weather as we get started and for a smooth build overall. We have 5 weeks before Christmas and hopefully, the garage will be demolished and will be up again and water tight before then…that’s a big ‘hopefully’! I know that for our builders this is a relatively easy job, but for us it’s like our very own Grand Design and we can’t wait

Post updated 17th February 2020.

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