What with all this talk of ditching plastic and milk bottles, I’ve been shockingly remiss and not posted a Monday Moments renovation update since the end of November. We were so busy trying to get the dining room Christmas-ready that bloggin’ flew right out of the window. It’s all too easy to fly through Instagram Stories and feel connected whilst painting, tiling or laying a floor than to clear enough time to actually sit down and write a lengthy, useful and engaging blog post. Whaddaya mean you haven’t even seen my Stroies? Get on Insta this minute 😉
So anyway, back to our catch up. For the first time in what feels like decades, but is probably only three years, we had a festive tree. Ok. Not an actual tree but shaped like a tree and painted green. I drew out a spruce on a waste piece of OSB and clever Mr Moregeous cut, sanded and shaped it. More pertinently in terms of our reno, I then fixed & painted the mouldings to the dining room walls and we even installed the new LED spotlights in the overhead boxing off. All of a sudden, the space which has for three years been nothing more than cluttered access from the original Edwardian building into the new kitchen extension, started to become a room again. And the tree got nailed to the wall, higher than below, that’s a ‘during’ shot.
The giant parquet flooring, made from our original pine floorboards, finally made it’s way out of the living room and into the central core of our home. It was weird, after so long walking on first open joists and then dusty screed, to finally walk on an attractive surface, warm underfoot and tactile to feel. The plasterers did their biscuity smelling thing before Mr M slapped some base coat white on to brighten it all up. That’s so rude isn’t it. Sorry Mr M. You didn’t slap it on at all, you lovingly sanded, filled and rollered the freshly skimmed walls. Because you love painting soooooo much. He hates painting.
I carried on with the fireplace, finishing off the inner reveals of the big chimney breast, folding the industrial subway tiles around the edges with crisp mitred corners. Damn he’s good at those mitres now, I need to spec some more to keep him in practice 😉
Instafans will know that it all went a bit wrong on the grout front. The cream grout looked insipid (to me, soz, I know some of you quite liked it) but thankfully the idea of a combining Indian Rosewood wood-dye and an artist’s brush worked a bloomin’ treat. After agonising over stars, flowers and hexagons for months, that lot then went out of the window as soon as my Lilypad sample tile landed on the Moregeous doormat. Perfection. I’ll lay these sometime this week, pop back next week to see them!
On the opposite side of the room to the new mouldings, the storage cabinets and banquette seating have started to take shape. I literally haven’t had kitchen cupboards for years, it’s like a fairytale of joy. I’m not exaggerating. All this new storage around and over the vintage mill window-mirror, plus the secret shelving hidden in the seat backs, mean that I can indulge my dream of a non-fitted kitchen. I say indulge my dream when actually what I mean is we’ve totally spent everything we have and now we can’t afford a kitchen….. so we have to improvise!! The idea is to be able to store a lot of items in the dining room and utility, leaving the kitchen clear for a giant larder and lots of open shelves. I’ll be getting on with designing that very VERY soon.
Whaddaya reckon, was it the right choice to go cream units then black detail and storage? I’m going dark with the kitchen units, what few there will be, so a contrast here in the dining room appealed. The current fad for all dark rooms is fantastic if that’s your thing, but I like a little yin with my yang. Or yang with my yin.
Nearly every box of my precious kitchen ‘stuff’ is now out of storage and unpacked. I was delirious with excitement to see it again. Then I had to wash it all. The excitement wore off pretty quickly.
To compensate for all the unpacking and washing chores (done by me), I demanded a gin shelf (done by him). In the space where our old water tank used to sit, there’s now a tall log store and sneakily split it in two to form a cheeky mini-bar next to the dining table. Very handy 😉
The DIY completed in December felt momentous and allowed us to have a super festive break with family and friends. For the first time, it feels like the end is in sight and there’s a definite, though still distant, light at the end of our renovation tunnel. I know many of you feel the same reno woes. They’re tiring aren’t they? Taking on the projects we do can be pretty tough going, but let’s all decide that 2018 is the year we nail all our home challenges and forge ahead with completing the killer tasks we set ourselves xx
All in all a very positive reno-way to round off 2017!
You’ve possibly already seen our New Years Resolution and anti-plastic pledge for 2018, so you know we’re starting off 2018 in a very positive way too. Not for us any of this Blue Monday nonsense. Today is apparently super depressing cause we’re all skint, the skies are grey and everyone’s super low after the highs of Christmas.
Well, I’ve got just the thing for you. How do you fancy winning a fabulous Breakfast Hamper?!! This week, after I found the marvellous Creamline Dairy and blogged about switching to their glass bottle milk delivery, they got in touch to ask if the Moregeous readers would fancy winning this super prize. Errrr, I figured that was a YES.
If you live in the Greater Manchester or Cheshire area and are in their catchment area for milk delivery, whizz over to my Twitter, follow me and follow Creamline, retweet and tell me why you NEED this foodie hamper in your life this week. Have breakfast in bed next weekend to banish the January blues 🙂
I absolutely insist that the winner tweet me a picture of themselves and the winning breakfast in bed too. Good luck xx
