The bedroom: before

I’m not very good at this blogging lark. I realised I’ve given you an ‘in progress’ post for the bedroom but not actually shown you what it was like to start with. Decidedly amateur move there jeopardising my hypothetical (as in entirely imaginary) book deal and prime time interior design TV show …

ANYWAY. This is what the bedroom looked like when I bought the penthouse.

Insert rubbish stripping joke here

Apologies for the lack of blog updates this week but I’ve been busy destroying the penthouse.

Not in a bad way obviously but definitely in a ‘worse before it gets better’ sort of way. So far the victims are the kitchen’s wall units, a couple of bits of wooden boxed in areas, the wallpaper from 1.5 rooms and my knuckles.

I’ve stripped the walls in the bedroom and I’d worried that the walls would be in a poor condition as they are all covered in textured wallpaper. Luckily they seem to be ok so far with only the cracks I’d already spotted. I never thought I’d be proud of bricks and plaster but whenever someone says ‘your walls are great’ I feel very smug!

Rewiring woes

So I thought owning a flat in need of updating would be a blissful existence of Pinterest and mood boards. Gazing at paint samples and lusting after beautiful furniture. No real stress, just dreaming up beautiful colour schemes and nifty storage options.

Actually it is mostly just expensive.

When I first looked round the penthouse I saw that the fuse board would need updating and guessed that, like many other things, the wiring was probably quite old and probably original. I knew that I’d probably end up rewiring the flat at some point.

Well, ‘at some point’ has become ‘before I do anything else’.

Clearing, cleaning & calling

So I’ve been a homeowner (hahahaha) for just over a week and so far it has been lots of cleaning, clearing out and calling people.

As the flat came with all the furniture and lots of knick-knacks I’ve got lots to sort through and get rid of.

I’ve also been cleaning up and arranging appointments for people to come to the flat and give me scary quotes for things I want/need for it.

Today was the start of the redecorating process and three different quotes.

The kitchen to do list versions 1-5

So now I’m definitely moving and definitely almost a home-owner I need to start making actual decisions, not just dreamily putting stuff on Pinterest. Turns out the real stuff is a lot more complicated than doing things hypothetically, who knew?!

For instance, I know the sort of thing I’m after for the kitchen and have put together a first draft but actually planning how to do it in the time available without spending a fortune is quite complex.