I thought I’d give a bit of an update today on how our house buying (rather than
house hunting!) is going now since I haven’t talked about it for a while. At the end of November, we finally got our offer accepted on the house we loved, and since then it’s been all sorts of paperwork, meetings, back and forth with all sorts of different people. I’ll hopefully do a full post soon on how it all works (since I didn’t have a clue beforehand really!), including mortgages and solicitors, but for not, we’ve been accepted on our mortgage, all the searches are being done, and we’re just waiting for a date for completion now. Not having a moving date yet hasn’t stopped us from shopping for our new house though!
Our new house is slightly bigger than ours now, with an extra bedroom, 3 more bathrooms (2 are en-suites and one is just a downstairs toilet, but still!) and some extra room, which means we’re going to be a bit sparse on furniture. Much of our current furniture is pretty cheap stuff from IKEA that we just grabbed for our last home, since we were moving from unfurnished to furnished in a short space of time. So now we’re on the lookout for things that are more durable and sturdy, but that means they’re slightly more expensive and need a lot more decisions making! We’ve already bought a new bed – that’s a story in itself! We ordered it from Groupon, and also ordered a new memory foam mattress to fit it since we’d decided to upgrade from a double to a king size. There was a small incident in that I accidentally ordered the bed to my office before realising it definitely wouldn’t fit in my tiny Nissan Micra – oops! That was all sorted though, and we finally managed to unpack it, after taking down and rebuilding our bed in the spare room, since the mattress needed time to rise, we planned to sleep in the spare room while we waited for it. What we didn’t bargain for was that the fixings kit, ie. all the screws, bolts and hinges, that we needed to build the bed would be missing. Fortunately I managed to track down the company that Groupon had got the beds from,
Sleepsoftly, then emailed and Facebooked them. I was a bit uncertain because they had not so great reviews for their customer service, but they were actually fantastic, replied in less than 24 hours and 2 days later we received the fixings kit completely for free! We were also given a partial refund for the bed since it had a massive chip out of one corners of the headboard and they couldn’t exchange it – that we can live with though.
The house itself doesn’t seem like it needs a lot doing to it, but we’d like to make it our own, so in time we’re planning to revamp bits here and there – the kitchen is definitely on our 5 year plan list, although I’d like some new tiles sometime soon for it, and the family bathroom is up there too since it has a bath without a shower.
Accessories
Look out for unique accessories that will transform your bathroom and make it look more impressive. Whether it’s a porcelain soap tray, clever ideas for storage or a funky bath mat, the little things are sure to create a fab revamp to your bathroom. We’re trying to work on getting some matching towels at the moment since ours are all over the place!
Tiling
Instead of boring, plain-looking tiles why not purchase coloured or patterned ones? You could create a feature wall in your bathroom with the tiles and it will make your bathroom look totally different.
Look out for clearances
Both retail stores and online will be full of sales items in January such as Ideal Standard stock clearance that features a range of baths, sinks, taps and showers. Make sure you search the entire market to find the deal that’s right for you.
Utilize wall space
If you have a cluttered bathroom, a great way to re-vamp your bathroom is by utilising your wall space. You can add shelves or look at other bathroom storage solutions for inspiration. Not only will it make your bathroom look more elegant, it will help to organise all of your clutter.
Bring the outdoors in
Add some greenery to your bathroom. No-one likes a bathroom that exudes bad smells. A nice plant or bouquet of flowers will help to keep those odours at bay without using the overpowering sprays that you can buy, such as air fresheners.
Lighting
Lighting is key to any room and especially important in bathrooms. It will make the space seem larger and it is practical too. You can install a dimmer in your bathroom, so that you can change the type of lighting depending on the mood you are in. If you want to enjoy a relaxing soak in the bath, you may choose to dim the lights slightly.
I’m still trying to style our bathroom in the new house I just moved into. There’s absolutely no storage or space, so we have cute baskets and containers sitting around with our things in them and we’ve had to install a towel rack! Will have to pin future inspiration!
Tegan xx – Permanent Procrastination