AD| Making our house a home

When my husband I bought our first home last year I was so excited at the thought of finally being able to make it our own. After 17 years of renting and living in someone else’s house, with someone else’s decor, we could finally create our very own forever home.

In all honesty, as more time passed by, the more unlikely I thought our chances of ever being able to buy our own home were. That all changed last year when my husband and I started to seriously look into buying.

We found ourselves an amazing mortgage advisor who worked wonders for us. He helped us every step of the way and the made whole mortgage application process so easy. Luckily, we had already found our ideal home and as luck would have it, we had a viewing too. Although an offer had already been accepted, the sale was taking too long for the vendor so when my husband and I offered the full asking price, with no chain, our offer was snapped up.

Ideas

Picking up the keys, just a little over a year ago, I remember that first step inside our home so well. My mind flooded with ideas.

Every room except the kitchen had beautiful parquet flooring, however it was quite severely damaged. That’s why my husband and I looked toward engineered wood flooring as an alternative to attempting to restore the parquet which would have been very expensive.

Engineered wood flooring looks pretty much the same as hardwood on the surface. The difference being that instead of a single wood plank, it’s actually made of a high-quality plywood core with a thin layer of hardwood flooring on top.

The benefits of engineered wood flooring such as 20Mm Engineered Wood Flooring is that it’s a more affordable option.

Big changes

Walking into the kitchen, I knew that the brick pantry cupboard had to go. It was a huge cupboard taking up an entire corner of the kitchen right by the back door. We’re lucky that my husbands son was on hand to help demolish the cupboard. He even helped us to design the kitchen and helped to fit it too.

When searching for inspiration and ideas I drew on our many years of living in rented accommodation. Over the years, and various properties, I learnt a lot about what works and what doesn’t.

I knew I wanted a pretty minimalistic home. No clutter, no toys in the living room etc. Our girls are 10 years old now so my husband and I gave them the bigger bedroom which means they have plenty of space in their bedroom for all of their toys and books.

My husband and I took the smaller bedroom which worked out really well. With some clever storage solutions, such as using a built in cupboard in the hallway as our wardrobe this gave us more room in our bedroom as we don’t have a huge wardrobe in it.

We also invested in folding desks and folding chairs for our girls which tuck neatly behind their wardrobes when not in use.

My favourite design solution though has to be the bifold doors. As our home is not big, we utilised space by having bifold doors on the living room and two bedrooms. The living room bifold door has two glass panels which allows plenty of light to flood in when closed.

Beautiful Furniture

Having lived in private rented housing for 17 years, our furniture mainly consisted of IKEA storage units. They’re cheap and do the job well enough but I knew I did not want IKEA furniture in our new home. Gone are the cube storage units and in are the beautiful side boards and matching TV unit. We also have a gorgeous white ladder shelf that is home to our favourite books.

Finishing Touches

For me, the finishing touches are what really makes a house a home. We have picture shelves of family photos, handmade crochet blankets, lamps that offer a warm glow, as well as cushions and eye-catching artwork.

We let our children help from the very beginning. They stripped wall paper, assembled flat-pack furniture and even helped to paint their bedroom and clean up. They chose their own colour paint and designed their own bedroom themselves.

I found making Pinterest boards a really great way to save all of my ideas and seeing them all come to life and come together so well, it a very satisfying feeling indeed! It’s almost a year since we moved into our home and we’ve settled in rather well. I wouldn’t have it any other way!