Imperfect substitutes of dreams...

So now what? 

Now I AM worried if I will actually have anything to post you about. Or if I will have the time? But mainly if there is anything I can show you. It’s quite plain and unsophisticated in here. I hardly ever buy anything new. Most of the time they’re used, second hand – often ersatz of what I would like to have. Imperfect substitutes of my dreams, which still can delight. Sometimes things in our home are “for the time being”, but can end up staying for long time... Thereby it happens that something “fits” a bit forcefully. Some corners just scream to place or hang something there, but these corners just have to wait for their turn :).

Here in England there is something called carboot sale. Kind of a bric-a-brac market. Basically a miscellany of things you don’t want anymore and just want to get rid of it. They are usually very cheap. It’s like my little guilty pleasure where I occasionally indulge myself ;). Actually most of my accessories were bought there. Now I’m thinking that beside our bed and the chest of drawers we bought for our bedroom, all our furniture were bought second hand. I have repainted some of them.

Two years ago I’ve fallen in love in shabby chic style and so I’ve changed table and chairs accordingly (check in my previous post). Now I’ve gone of it… chich doesn’t mean I don’t like it anymore :). Table and chairs are not shabby anymore.

I really like white furnitures. What is my favourite style? I don’t know. I think I can find something for myself in any of them. Recently I find retro quite captivating. I think I could change design of my house like every month, that is if I was a millionaire, and see some sort of greater good in that. But I am not, and all changes occur veeery slowly. Everything with little steps...

In the house that we are renting, all the walls are covered with magnolia paint. Which seems natural, warm and loved by Englishmen. But not by me. It’s the last colour I would choose for my home.

Lounge

We have quite spacious lounge (as for common English house). Here, the architecture is quite different from the Polish. Often rooms can be really small (I’m not exaggerating, some bedrooms we saw in here where of a pantry size), stairs are very steep and narrow (I was lucky enough to experience it and survive ;))

When we moved in I’ve realised that the shade of green that the table top and two chairs where painted with, did not match with magnolia on the walls (at least if the saturation of the colour was a bit more delicate, but unfortunately it is very high). So I have changed green to grey. I’ve bought old wooden sideboard and corner cabinet and also repainted them.

Photos are not great, but I never thought of them as with purpose for my blog :). 

The biggest shocker of this place was the “fireplace” (and maybe also the lamp and sconces ;)). I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more hideous – I have nearly collapsed first time I saw it ;).

Someone really went wild with mouldy porridge patterned panel and gradient tiles. Our land lady, (after few days of consideration) agreed for metamorphosis. I could breathe with ease now. Pine (I think) wood and tiles got covered with white paint, mouldy porridge was wallpapered.

Since that time, fireplace looks pretty much the same (the only difference is that the tiles are evenly coated with white paint now). 

Not long after the metamorphosis. 

 That is how lounge looked like on the beginning (unfortunately I do not have any pictures from when we moved in nor before it’s current look):

Our land lady is not much keen for any changes – for example we really had to “put up a fight” just to hammer two nails onto the walls. I wasn’t aware that two nails can bring so much joy :).

On one we hanged a picture above the sideboard.

Currently we have come to an agreement. We can hammer and hang things, but we will have to fill in any holes and repaint before moving out.

Can you see that lamp? ;/

It’s a nightmare...

What can you do with that without replacing it? Do you have any idea how to cover that thing up (I can’t repaint it as I could cause a heart attack ;))

I have only changed the lampshades...

Here is my „new” second hand purchase – armchair won on Ebay auction for a pound :). 

I am looking at those Spring’s photos... and I already want Spring to come back.

So I am springy finishing this post :).

I am awaiting the first comment.

Any, even negative feedback will be precious to me :).

…two years have passed…

More than two years have passed since my „first” unpublished post.

Ten days after I’ve wrote it, our landlady has passed. Because of that (despite the fact that we were allowed to stay for next two months) nothing has been changed since. Time has stopped for that place. My (not mine) another little world discontinued to give joy. We had to look for another one... It wasn’t easy. When we eventually found the place to rent, and all the formalities with agency were settled it came to our knowledge that the landlady won’t allow for any changes in the house. She inherited the house after her granny and she wished for everything to stay exactly as it was – sort of museum for late grandma, in which you can’t place any of your own furniture nor put away bouquets of artificial flowers which house was packed with. I couldn’t have lived in a place where you can’t change/express anything.

We had yet another adventure with a house which got sold just before we were about to move in. Always something, but nothing happens without a reason – they say. We have rented a home in Old Windsor -  me, my husband and a close friend of ours. We share it till now. We have been living here for nearly 2 years. One year ago a new tenant has joined us. Our son :).

That’s the whole story. I was out of the woods :).

And now, the promised metamorphosis of table and chairs.

I’ve bought them on Gumtree. Below you can see it all on a picture taken by the seller. Discription did not mention anything about it being in terrible condition... Which I, unfortunately found out after delivery.

                                        The worst were chair’s legs and cushions.

                                                           Cushion’s fill:

Sanding paper went in motion:

I’ve painted table and chairs with Annie Sloan chalk paint, which does it’s job if you are going for shabby chic style. I was not impressed with it. It dries up very quick – you might think it’s a good thing, but if you are trying to achieve a pretty smooth finish, you have to try hard. It’s ideal for creating a brush stroke effect on your furniture. I used roller as wanted for surface to be as smooth as possible. After it dried, I’ve applied wax from the same brand.

Here’s how it came out:

At the moment it’s too shabby chic for me. 

Tastes do change, you know... ;)

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…

                                                              And by just by the entrance… a lion.

During flood…

Spring…

I think I’m starting to bore you.

I’m finishing my first post.

I’m really pleased if you’ve reached the end. Thank you. My kind regards.

Monika