Pre-demolition photos

A selection of photos showing the rooms once our stuff was packed away. This was the original ensuite which became my overflow wardrobe. Check out the teensy shower space. Even if you could get the water to run at more than a dribble, you'd have to be child sized to fit in here anyway.

I won't miss the floral motif on this basin. Or this basin.

Gah the roman blinds again! The laminate floor!

A badly constructed 'fitted'wardrobe which was next to useless in terms of hanging clothes due to the short rail inside.

The stippled ceiling with strange cracks.... And the rest of the snaps show the kids room.

Before pics: The bathroom & ensuite

Kind friends have said that this bathroom isn't so bad. I guess at first glance it's no worse than many rental properties with it's 1980s bland aesthetic. But having lived with it for the last six years I know all it's shortcomings. And I'm now cured of a desire to ever have white tiles again.

A tiled in cistern. Genius idea. Not.

Ye olde stippled ceiling. And an unpredictable light that blew transformers due to a design fault.

I have no idea why real estate agents tell people that an extra bathroom will add £10k or whatever onto the asking price. We certainly didn't pay over the odds for this house because it had an ensuite. As it happened, the shower had about as much water pressure as a weak watering can so swiftly became a hanging rack for my clothes. The only true benefit was having a sink a few paces from my bed for when I needed to expel too many martinis.

Before pics: Top floor

As you can see, we're basically slobs. Due to a lack of clothes storage and six years of accumulated crap; our bedroom is a dumping ground instead of a nice place to hang out. I'm posting these as a reminder to myself as to how NOT to live.

Here's my pet peeve: A stippled ceiling. It will be so nice to not have to look at this ever again.

The roman blinds were leftover from the last owners. No idea why we didn't pull them down earlier. They are hideous.

Before pics: kids bedroom

End of an era...

I leave my job at Wallpaper* in two days time. There's a massive restructure going on and I applied for voluntary redundancy. My motivation for applying was primarily down to two things: firstly, the payoff. Secondly - six years in digital for one company is a long time, and I'd been thinking about when to make that leap into something invigorating and scary (as change is often scary). The timing couldn't have been better.

And it means that in a week or so, we'll have the funds to finally finish the house! There have been entire houses built from scratch in a fraction of the time it's taken to renovate this one [refer: Grand Designs]

The good news is, the builders gave me the quote today and it's only a bit over what I'd budgeted. My original plan of having the summer off might be curtailed if the cost of the renovation creeps up buy hey, I'll be a much happier human being having a proper wardrobe, a floor that doesn't creak and a bathroom that isn't embarrassing to show guests.

Even better news is they can start next week - not quite sure if that's feasible given that we'd have to empty the top floor of all our stuff - including the furniture - but if they can then I'll be able to tick one massive thing off my to do list when people ask me 'What's next?' - my answer has been pretty standard:  Have the summer off, finish the house and then find something exciting in digital - to that end, if you need my skills - I'm available for freelance, contract or permanent roles - my LinkedIn profile is here:
 http://uk.linkedin.com/in/kaymcmahon and if you work in marketing for a brand and you'd like to come to a workshop on Designing Disruption (in east London) I'm one of the speakers, details here: http://www.iabuk.net/events/library/designing-disruption

And I guess this means with building work imminent, at least this blog will get updated more regularly!