So it’s been a while since I talked about our new home, so I think it’s time for a home renovation update. Late last year we bought a 70s home. You can see the before pictures here. As our home needed a lot more work than we thought, so it was quite depressing for a while. We got off to a great start and then we hit a bit of a brick wall to say the least. The plastering was done, a couple of floors were down and we had done quite a lot of painting. We had also changed the boiler, pipes and installed designer radiators from Best Heating. Then, when we knocked down a wall in the kitchen and found some very strange looking cables, everything just stopped. So far everything worked fine, but when we had the electrics checked we found out that there were lots of strange things going on behind the walls. Nothing was earthed and the electrics failed on many levels, so we needed a full re-wire. This was of course not what we wanted to hear, but we wanted to make sure that our home is safe. Did you know that all homes should have a re-wire every 30 – 35 years?!
We quite quickly found electricians who could do the job, but had to wait a few weeks. So for a few weeks we stopped all the work and didn’t even visit the house much. It all felt very depressing and pretty difficult. Then when they started working it got even worse. These are photos from the re-wire. Let’s just say it was really hard. I’m pleased to say though that our electricians were very kind to us and avoided making holes unnecessarily. So after around a week of re-wiring every single socked (thankfully we could add more), light switches and making sure that everything is now earthed, they were done. We’ve had walls re-plastered and done a lot of painting. It’s been a huge job, much bigger than we could have ever imagined, but we’re really pleased with the result.
As that wasn’t enough, we then discovered that there was no insulation downstairs. It always felt colder than upstairs, but we had no idea that it was that severe. As our house is upside down, the bedrooms are downstairs. We had the wood panelling taken off the walls, insulation and new stud walls put up and also had the walls plaster boarded and plastered. Again a much bigger job than we had expected, but we found one nice bonus. There was nice parquet flooring under the pink carpet. It’s in pretty good condition, so we’ve left it exposed. This is quite a long home renovation update, but I feel it’s necessary to explain why I’ve been quite for a while. This really took over our lives and it’s was quite hard to do our normal work at the same time.
I’m choosing to skip some of the horror photos and jump straight to the more pleasing ones. Over the next few weeks I’ll be revealing room after room. I’m starting with a few teaser images and then we’ll go into more detail. So let’s do this! I’ll let you know where I got things from and as we go along. A lot of things are Scandinavian design, but that is of course what I normally write about and love, so no surprises there. Hope you will love it as much as we do.
I’ve had lots of questions on Instagram about our velvet curtains. They were actually here when we bought the house, so I’ve just had them dried cleaned. I love the ochre colour!
Our gorgeous new sofa is called Outline and is from Muuto, designed by Anderssen & Voll. The Ferm Living stool Herman is from Amara. I love the fact that the legs match the curtains. It has got such an interesting shape too.
The vintage oak flooring is from Quick Step and it’s called Largo. The reason I chose it was because of the lovely colour, but also the fact that the boards are 2 meter long.
The kitchen is all white, except for our beautiful worktops. We’ve got Lundh’s real stone Emerald Silk tops and don’t they just look stunning? They actually sparkle! The stone is from Norway and the worktops are very low maintenance. I will tell you much more about them very soon.
The Meraki dish washing soap is from Rooi and the Skagerak plant pot from Amara.
Here’s our master bedroom. We’ve chosen white Gubi Cobra wall lights from David Village Lighting. (Check out their selection by the way! Amazing!)
Our upholstered bed from Time4Sleep is not only comfortable, but it has the best storage solution. I can store all my linen, duvets, bedspreads and many (!) cushions under the boarded base. Love!
I can’t wait to show you more!