little steps...: That’s how it was suppose to start...

30.07.2013

Welcome to my blog :). Hmm... it’s hard for me to believe that in the end I am actually making my first Little steps here. About a half a year ago I’ve discovered the world of interior designing blogs... The same amount of time took me to think about my own. And now it happened. Exactly today I am stepping into “your world” as one of you. I don’t know where it comes from, but I feel... that peculiar happiness. The moment in which we feel a child in us again...

I would like to share my little corners with you... changes and ideas that occur on the inside of my little world. Another world... as to be frank it’s just another stop. Unfortunately... Although I don’t know how long will I house in this place (it’s has been 7 months now) I am trying to put a bit of my soul into it - as much as possible and reasonable... especially financially. People who live in not their own flats or houses will surely understand that. Currently we (me and my husband) live on an upper floor of a house which is located very near to Heathrow in England. We have very spacious lounge, bathroom, bedroom, and... let’s just call it a kitchenette (room was never suppose to be a kitchenette – it was a utility room with a sink – but we made it into a substitute of kitchen). It is all amazingly much compared to previous, little room that was our only private space till now, as rest of that house was shared with tenants.

We found the flat in more than deplorable state and unfortunately it needed lots of work before it started to look normal. The worst things were deep cracks in walls, especially near the ceiling. I’ve equipped myself with spatula... and was very slowly trying to fill in the gaps making them even. When I’ve reached day room my patience had finished. Splits here were much more considerable, sometimes even inch long faults between ceiling and wall. That needed much more work, applying plastering net would probably be for the best. Never mind. I did not want to invest any more money nor work in that. The easiest solution would be mounting polystyrene coving to cover that up, but again, money issue... So I bought white stripped textured wallpaper on Ebay, I then cut it and attached it along the corner of the wall and ceiling. I was satisfied with the end result, though it was not perfect. It was also my first time gluing wallpaper (also to the walls ;-) ). It wasn’t easy, but it still holds on :).

Walls were never painted for 23 years that the owners lived in here... and you don’t know for how long the previous owners left it without refreshing. For that many years no one has cleaned windows, doors, lamps etc.

I regret not taking any pictures from before our move, picturing whole rooms, while landlady’s furniture where still here (there is few still remaining). There was a lot of paintings hanging from the walls (some of them were really intriguing).

If that was my own flat, my “little” renovation would be much bigger, but that fact causes my demobilization and I just can’t seem to see the point in repainting in example: doors or windows.

This is right after painting and wallpapering. Still with post-renovation-mess ;-). Here you can see still “old” table and carpet. I’m afraid colours were distorted by the camera.

„New” table in new colour. I’ll try to show you table’s metamorphosis in next post.

There is still so much to improve, but the main outline was reached :). So long awaited new (and thank God - bright) carpet :)!

Balcony of fear. Crooked planks – walking on those really does raises your heartbeat. So unfortunately you couldn’t put any table or chairs in there. Old and nevertheless charming balustrades... Few more shots from my balcony-garden ;).

The house is very old – as most of English houses we lived in, it is at least 100 years old – it’s also huge and has a character. The architecture is very much different from all the houses I’ve seen so far in this country. It’s as shame it’s so rundown... It’s exactly the same story with the garden which has roughly 100 square meters. First time that I saw the house, I thought we had wrong address, as house looked deserted mainly because of state of the garden. Around us there is a lot of greenery and a river.

Just outside the window in the lounge I can see Thames. It’s a really beautiful view…