Before and After

Before and After Series...Part 1...The Living Room.

Part of Holly Becker's Blogging Your Way Ecourse course is

 to come up with two new feature ideas for your blog and post them this week.

 Although hardly an innovative idea, I find looking at other
peoples' homes and the whole renovating process fascinating,
so I thought I'd do a few shots on Trend Daily

 so that you may follow our little home adventure! 

Back in 2005 we moved from a very pretty 2 bed cottage into a

 relatively un-spectacular 1960s house in the next village. 

What we lost in charm we made up for with lots of light and space

 and the chance to make our stamp on our first real family home.

Fast forward to 2012 and even though the builders have long gone,
 the house and garden are still far from finished-
in my mind at least. My taste is so eclectic, that nothing seems to stay the same
 for more than 5 minutes, as I continually shuffle things around
 or come home with yet another charity shop find! 


I'm quite surprised at how the look is developing. 
I guess I never really had a particular look or style in mind-
it just keeps evolving. Unfortunately my tastes seem to change on a regular basis
 and even so early on in the decorating process,
 there are already some things I wouldn't mind changing again-eventually...!


So, here is our living room for part one of the series.
 Soft yellow walls and blue carpets-apologies to those of you who
 like this combination, but it was the first thing to go for us. 
Isn't there something nice about finding a house that has so much potential!

                                                                 Living Room before shots.

Shot 1. Ok, so they're not the prettiest of windows, but at least they're big!


Shot 2. A very traditional and cheap pine fire surround.


Shot 3. Looking out to the front and our very well worn Ikea sofa bed.


Shot 4. This room is the original extension. You can see here
where the first owners knocked through right next to the chimney.




The first thing I had to change was the layout downstairs. Space planning
is my real passion-I can spend hours and hours on it and I did ,
 amending my plans more times than I care to remember. I couldn't get my head 
around the fireplace hanging on the end of the wall, so 
we literally took the door away from the dining room next door and
put it in here with a new stud wall...
Now we have a completely separate room-much better!

Photograph by Graeme Ainscough


Graeme and I have worked together on many projects over the past 20 years.
He very kindly took some wide angle shots for me for a magazine feature.
 All other photos are by me, either with my Canon Eos 400D or Evie's I Pod Touch!

This wonderful 1960's sideboard was actually featured in Elle Decoration and I had the best luck finding it on ebay for the princely sum of £320!! The Dandelion Clocks wallpaper is by Sanderson.

Photograph by Graeme Ainscough


The wonderful dusky pink armchair in this shot was borrowed from
 a local shop for the magazine shot.
 Unfortunately I was unable to by it at the time, but it did look great!
 We also borrowed the mirror and decorative accessories.
The shelving system was from Ilva, a wonderful Danish furniture superstore
 that made a very brief appearance in the UK, but suffered terribly
 with the location for it's launch. Come back Ilva!

The 1970's Danish armchair and lobster pot stool were
 finds at the vintage fair at Farnham Maltings.

The felt throw and bobble cushion are both by En Gry & Sif.
 The large cushion is an original, 'Seaweed,' designed in 1954 for Arthur Sanderson.
The mustard trunk was made to transprort decorative accessories
 from India-cheap and cheerful and quite handy for hiding
 all our rubbish-of which there's plenty of!

I keep meaning to frame some photos, but I never quite get round to it,
 so this is our current wall display! The beautiful handmade pressed flower paper
 was a present from Jon. The oil painting was a charity shop find for £1
 and just a few photos of our little kiddies Evie and Gabriel!


A huge thank you to 2 of my oldest and dearest friends Gilly and Tish
for making my wonderful curtains for me. I
pretended to help, but I'm really not very good at that sort of thing! xx


I can't quite decide which room to feature next in the makeover series-
we'll just have to see-how exciting! Meanwhile, if you'd like
 a sneak peak at a few other rooms, take a look at a feature by one of my Blogging Your Way
 pals, the very talented Igor at his lovely Happy Interior blog.
 Igor very kindly featured me in
 his Happily Ever After Series-thank you-again-Igor! 


Happy Weekend all! x