Loft access

Another conundrum solved with the initiative of our clever builders: where to store our suitcases? I suggested a high shelf but Rob said that'd look ugly. The builders suggested putting them into the loft space and I pointed out that getting them out might be problematic as I travel a lot and climbing up a ladder was a recipe for disaster. But for £80 you can buy a loft ladder, problem solved!

There's quite a bit of flat space in the roof, so the builders are going to line it with plasterboard (to reduce dust from insulation etc) so we can not only store suitcases, but out of season clothes and the camping gear - yippee!

Laundry room taking shape

This will post will feel as dull as dishwater, unless you're about to make a laundry room (aka utility room) too? If not, then I'd have to agree. Probably the least exciting room your home will ever have. If like me you're from New Zealand this will seem like a totally normal thing to have in your home. London flat dwellers don't usually have the space to put in a laundry room and the British are fond of sticking the washing machine in the kitchen (why not the bathroom?! Who gets undressed in the kitchen?)

These photos show the former end of the garage, well, middle really as the end was used to make our kitchen. The space was gutted, a wall put up and behold - insulated. Amazingly the wall between the garage and kitchen was never insulated, which goes a long way to explaining the glacial blast which came out of our cupboards in winter. On the upside, our cupboard items remained fresh for ages. At least with an insulated wall our gas bill should be less of a fright next winter.

The room now has it's own (eco) light bulb and a separate switch to run an extractor fan. This means we can shut the door and leave the dryer on and the humidity won't get too crazy in there. Guests will be pleased they no longer have to climb over an airing rack in order to sleep in the spare bedroom.

A trip to Ikea is on the cards so we can buy one of their wall-mounted drying racks. The selection of such items online is pretty bad, and the so-called specialist websites that deal with such things are overwhelmingly awful. Definitely a gap in the market for anyone who can be bothered. The flooring is en route and then we need to think about how to house the mountain of stuff that used to be in the garage into this little space.

De-junking

The mid-century fixation continues as we're enjoying more space. Our wider than normal hall which leads to the spare room now houses the retro bar (pictured top). And we finally hung the teak mirror I bought 18 months ago on eBay (pictured below).

The middle floor now feels like a shrine to G-Plan with the mirror, sideboard, bar and coffee table. Having this stuff in place makes the room feel like more or less finished, which is a bit of a relief after nearly three years. Now all we need to do is hang our accumulated art.



This photo shows the spare room now - a couple of weeks ago you could barely see the floor or walls for boxes stacked in there. Apologies to everyone who's stayed here since we moved in - but feel free to come back and revisit!

G-Plan sideboard

It's the imminent arrival of certain guests that suddenly propel action in our house. For nearly three years we've ignored the piles of boxes in the spare room. Each one labelled 'office' or 'books' so hardly exciting enough to warrant invesigation. Rob's parents are arriving this week - at the time of writing they were delayed due to the freak snow storm in Wellington and hadn't made it onto their flight - but we used the last two Sundays to sort out those boxes.

Pictured top is the gorgeous G-Plan sideboard I bought on eBay for the bargain price of £110 + £45 delivery. It looked pretty impressive in the photos on the listing and I have to say, it's even better in real life. We had to remove the legs to get it up the stairs, and it suffered a slight scuff on the front being hauled over the hand rail, but a dab of wood stain and I'm sure it'll be fine. The two photos below show the sideboard in our upstairs TV room.

The next de-junking project has to be the boxes in the kids room, the garage and under the stairs...

Decluttering mission

In a recent post I mentioned our plans for the utility room. Well, this is the view of our garage and where the bike rack is (on the floor), is about where a new wall would go to separate the utility space from the garage.

I wish I had a 'before' photo to show you as this space has been completely overhauled. There were boxes of who-knows-what and unstable shelves full of miscellaneous DIY debris in here. It was impossible to walk around the bikes due to the tower of fire hazards looming - one bump and the whole lot would tumble.

Rob has been working part-time all summer and he must've noticed my exasperation at this mess 'What exactly do you do all day again?'. I came home last week and opened the garage door to be greeted with an industrial shelving unit and a clear floor. It would've taken hours. And it's surprisingly satisfying being able to walk around in here now. There's still quite a bit of junk to dispose of but this is 10x better than it was.

Turn it up!

Last week was a landmark week: yes we finally hung our first bit of art on the wall (my sister-in-law's graphic painting, refer earlier post) and I turned 40. People keep asking me how it feels to be 40... and I have to say, pretty much the same as 39, 38 etc. Maybe even better. I haven't thrown a big birthday party for myself since I was 25 so this was a good excuse to throw open the doors and invite some of my nearest and dearest to come and celebrate.

Fortunately, Rob bought me a set of Numark turntables, a mixer with iPod docking station and a very loud amp and speaker combination for my birthday. (I'm ignoring the fact that the speakers are in "beech effect"). I went to Ikea to buy yet another grey metal cabinet (now on sale for £32!) which houses all my vinyl. I am thinking about shipping over another two crates of vinyl I have in storage in New Zealand - there are definitely some gems in there, but I have a habit of buying records for their covers so no doubt there'll be lots of doozies too.

I ended up with three friends who are also professional DJs at my birthday (and a few bedroom ones) and had democratic DJing till way after the sun came up (apologies to my very accommodating neighbours). The soundsystem kept feeding back as I'm told the pickups inside the cartridge heads don't like being so near the metal of the cabinets so we had to pad it out with towels - will find a rubber backed mat for next time. The good news is that despite ramming in fullsize Roulette and Blackjack tables upstairs in the TV room and filling the house with people, it never felt too crazy inside, the acoustics were great and there was plenty of room in the fridge for what seemed like unlimited booze.

One of our original goals for the house was to make it a social space for this kind of thing and it sure beats hanging out in a sleazy bar with dubious punters and unpredictable music. Oh dear, I really have gotten old...

Cabinet stop gap

Another Friday night at Ikea. We must be getting pretty good at it now as we don't fight any more. Partly due to knowing all the short cuts around the store, but also learning the tricks - such as eating first, parking near the lifts where you exit from rather than near the entrance and making a list.

On this trip we bought the two metal cabinets mentioned in an earlier post, and two plastic trays. Not bad. The cabinets in their massive flat pack boxes only just made it into the Volvo (had to remove the back seat headrests though), but were remarkably easy to assemble.

I ordered a 37" flatscreen Toshiba Regza from Amazon including all the cables, a temporary indoor antenna and related bits for under £500 (there goes the holiday fund) which arrived the next day. The upside of having a second TV is that Rob can watch sport and the kids can watch Spongebob... and I can read the newspaper supplements in peace.

The room is starting to feel really useful, instead of cold and bland. We'll get a third cabinet actually, since this will be our storage for the next couple of years. Looking forward to getting all our artwork up on the walls this side of Christmas.

Now to find a plumber who actually shows up as we need that boiler replaced, and soon.

Click the photo below to see a supersize panorama taken at the weekend...

Cabinet sadness

I don't know why I actually thought that this would happen any time soon. I guess it's denial. It seemed like we'd been really careful about the cost of most things and even recovering from massive cost over runs - paying for such exciting unforeseen necessities such as extra support beams and what not - the funds are drying up. Heck, I thought by not doing an entire floor we would've recovered quite a chunk of money, but alas. Not nearly enough.

Back in December I posted the architects drawings of the proposed bespoke wall cabinet - which was originally costed at £1,000 and was then re-quoted closer to £2,000. Even so, it's the feature that will really make the room. From being an impactful bit of design as well as enormously useful, it was the one thing in the house that I was determined was going to happen come hell or high water. Anyway, here comes the high water: we need a new boiler.

Our existing boiler is 20 years old and the plumbing is a mess. The power shower pump isn't in the right place so some mornings the shower runs at a determined dribble. There isn't enough oomph to get all the radiators piping hot at the same time. And our utility bills from NPower are eyewateringly high. With the temperature dropping the central heating will go on in the next week or two so it's time to act.

A new boiler will cost around £1,500 to install (quotes to come in shortly according to Rob) but will save potentially over £300 a year in heating costs. Then there's the glass splash back (£550) which is becoming a priority as every passing week means the wall near the hob gets in more of a state. So now we've agreed to get a couple of cheap metal Ikea cabinets (pictured top) which cost £65 each. This temporary solution can accommodate misc house debris, and can be re-used elsewhere when we rustle up the £2,000 to build the proper cabinet.

I guess it's time to move on and sort a storage solution as we've been here for nearly a year and there are loads of boxes piled high in our TV room which are really starting to annoy me (what's IN those boxes?!)

Storage and stuff

We've had quite a few sympathetic emails from friends who thought the timing was unlucky ie: moving into an unfinished home just when a bitter cold snap hits the UK. I have to say, it's actually no colder than a Wellington* winter (*in NZ, where we're from). I lived in several wooden houses there which were badly insulated, had no central heating or double glazing and were impossible to keep warm. Hunkering down in London with the frost/ice/snow is sort of nostalgic...

Speaking of warmth, and therefore gas and boilers - we are getting bespoke cabinetry made to house the boiler, as well as hide an assortment of objects. It'll run the length of the extension wall. There'll be a bar in there, a hole for a TV and shelves for cookbooks, miscellaneous debris etc. Pictured is the architect's plan for the cabinetmaker to work from. For a while we considered Dieter Rams shelving from Vitsoe but decided that something with doors that was custom built would work better. Also, a colleague said Dieter's shelving could look too industrial for residential spaces. She's an expert in these matters and I'm happy to defer to people who know about these things.

Bathroom cabinet

If we have wall space (ha!) then this cupboard would be a welcome addition to the bathroom. I like the rounded corners and the photo-realistic grass. For ages I've been meaning to buy a red metal cross shaped cabinet for our bathroom, thinking it would be great for medical items. As it turned out we've ended up stacking semi transparent Muji storage boxes in our current bathroom, there's no way our medical items would fit into a single red cross shape. I don't think the Muji boxes will fit with our new 'grown up' aesthetic anyway, so they're not relocating to the new house.

Middle floor looking east

The house has three levels - ground: which consists of a cloakroom, some under-stairs storage, the garage (which is so narrow very few cars could actually fit in it), a tiny bedroom and a utility room. The middle floor (pictured below and to the right) is currently open plan and has a kitchen and living room. And the top floor has two bedrooms, one with a shower en suite, and an internal bathroom.

I'm sure this middle floor set up breaks all kinds of fire codes, if the kitchen was billowing smoke there's no way for people on the top floor to get out, but I digress. As someone who loves to cook this kitchen is ridiculous to me - the bench space (counter top to my American friends) is fragmented and there isn't much of it. The storage isn't particularly generous either.

Our current kitchen is massive by comparison and cost a paltry £1,000 from Ikea (appliances on top, natch). It's difficult to plan the perfect kitchen with so many variables (I'm short and hubby hates it that I have a step ladder to reach high shelves), we both want a massive fridge this time round as under-the-counter options look fabulous in an integrated kitchen but are just too small for a family of four. I'm insisting on a wall oven as it's safer when there are kids underfoot - hubby thinks this is entirely unecessary. Mind you, he seldom cooks so it's not like he'd get any benefit hauling a roast chicken out at waist height.

Ikea has a fabulous online 3D kitchen planner so hubby is going to try out a few combos and we'll probably head there this weekend to see if we can agree on a cupboard style and a bench top. Fortunately we have the same taste so it'll be easy to at least narrow it down...