Where We're from & Where we're going...

Our Current House Story

Two years ago I moved into my current house, a rented 1930's semi with peeling vinyl wallpaper covered in thick layers of filthy magnolia paint and god knows what other substances. It had previously been a student pad and came with some questionable furniture, a wild garden and spiders the size of my face. But it was in our budget and the landlord seemed like a reasonable bloke - fees to a minimum and we could redecorate if we wanted to.

One of the first things I did was redecorate my bedroom, which was frankly the worst room in the house. There where stains.... 🤢🤢🤢 I deep cleaned the walls, because the landlord didn't want us to take the textured wallpaper I had to keep the woodchip wallpaper, I hate textured wallpaper with a passion but thats what you have to deal with in rented homes, unfortunately. I painted the walls in Dulux Chic Shadow and covered the yellowing glosswork in Wilko Brilliant White gloss.

Once I'd done one room I had THE ITCH to do more... So I arranged to have the kitchen table removed, that took up literally two-thirds of our living room, it was honestly a joke! It was such a hefty thing it took the handyman who came to remove it over an hour to dismantle. The walls needed a lot of TLC because of damp patches and general wear and tear. Once I'd deep cleaned and polyfillered where needed I set about repainting the living room in Sanderson Crystal Grey in Elite Emulsion.

The next step was the kitchen, which was greasy and tired magnolia. I chose a cheerful warm Yellow by Johnsons to paint the Kitchen. The happy yellow contrasts with the grey livingroom to create a really welcoming space that is just so happy to come into in the mornings.

Lastly, I redid the hallways, which was in desperate need of work and made the biggest impact on the house! The tired peeling vinyl needed stripping and it was such a satisfying job to get rid of it! but it did reveal some nasty cracks in the plaster, so I had to fill them and sand them before repainting, not a perfect job but a million times better than what was there before. The paint I chose was Dulux Goose Down, which is a very warm grey in a satin finish to help bounce the light in our dark hallway.

I also wallpapered the main hallway with a feature wall of Zoffany Prism wallpaper, the perfect wallpaper for a hallway dramatic but not too garish. The wallpaper is contract quality so scrubbable and hardwearing enough for a high traffic area. For my first attempt at wallpapering I think it looks pretty good, even if it did take me a very very long time and I struggled with the weight of the paper, if I was to do it again I would choose a normal wallpaper rather than a vinyl because I really struggled to lift it at times meaning I needed help to put it up.

We also changed the small guest bedroom which looked like a prison cell into a games room by having the bed removed and moving a small sofa into there. Not the prettiest designed room but it did what it was supposed too, contain the boys video games and keep them from demolishing the house when they had their mates over.

The final change we made to the property was the garden. I did an insane amount of weeding, hacking back brambles and pulling out tree saplings to get it looking somewhat respectable. Then I set about filling it with bulbs, wildflower seeds and planting a herb garden. It transformed into a shabby student mess to a grown-up place to hang out and have a BBQ.