Then and Now: Nursery

The third bedroom is at the front of the house, and is the smallest.  Handily, it's not as small as the third bedroom we had in our Cardiff house.

Though we did paint them both almost the same color.  (This one is the Johnstone's color match to Next's Spa Retreat.)  Yup, that's mattress up against the wall.  Because we haven't figured out what we're doing with the girls' bedrooms yet.  We have a twin mattress, but no frame.  So sometimes it goes on the floor for someone to sleep on or just for rough housing.

The way the stairs are configured means that there is this funny box built into the room.  (The pitch of the head height for the stairs cuts into the floor of the bedroom.  Does that make sense?  Basically the box stays.)

We have some vague ideas about what to do with the box (like turning it into a seating area with built-in storage.)  But nothing concrete.  I took off the, uh, interesting paper that was covering the top of the box.  And as if there wasn't enough going on, I decided to use a heat gun to strip the paint, instead of painting.  The wood underneath was in decent condition.

So, we sanded and varnished and then put some Ikea bookshelves on top for clothes storage.  

It's not fancy, but it works for now.  And I think I better secure the bookshelves because our 'baby' is walking and is a climber.

I  know there were some redeeming things about this room, but looking at the picture below I can't remember what they were.  Oh yes, one being that this room was larger than the small room from our Cardiff house.  But I already mentioned that.  The floorboards were in great condition.  The ceiling was covered in polystyrene tiles, but they were easily removed.

Another redeeming thing is the window.  It's fairly tall and lets in a lot of light.

I think this room probably belonged to the daughter of the former owners, since there was a school bag and a plaque with her name on the back of the door.  (From what I gather, the house was only vacant for a year, but had been left in a state of disrepair for quiet a while before that.  The daughter probably left school 30 years ago, the school bag was leather and kind of amazing.)

The name plaque came down, but now there's a hook in its place.  Just in case we need it.  (Did I mention how long it has taken to getting around to taking the 'now' pictures?  Especially for this room.  Either the baby is sleeping, so no photos.  Or she's awake and her sister is awake, and they're both running around or wanting to be held.  So you get random glimpses of the girls.  You're welcome.)

Then and Now: Master Bedroom

I love the color purple.  So I guess it was meant to be that the front bedroom would be the one Niall and I use.  This room had the most interesting relics left behind; religious pieces, prayers on the walls, old family photos and a funny little alarm and tea caddy.  We loved the fireplace.

Luckily the bricks behind the plaster were still in really good condition so we were able to hack it back to the exposed brick.

The little alcoves on either side of the chimney breast were recessed.  (Do you love the cane?)

We decided to have built-in wardrobes built.  The size of the room meant that we needed to have decent storage to keep things tidy.  The alcoves are more than a meter wide.  We couldn't find a decent door solution for the size, so the joiners cut some from MDF and then had them machine routered.   (Yet another bonus to using shopfitters.) 

I bought some Komplement pieces from Ikea and chrome rails, and the joiners built the wardrobe specific to my design.  Thanks, guys.  My wardrobe is bespoke for lots of dresses and shoes, and Niall's side has plenty of hanging room for trousers, suits and shirts.  Hello Baby!

When we looked at the house, we were able to pull up the rug in the room and see that the floorboards underneath were in good shape.  I think they sanded up very nicely.

Probably the main feature of the room is the fireplace.

We originally planned to paint the brick (we had seen a house around the corner with a painted brick fireplace in the bedroom) but decided against it when we saw how lovely the natural brick was.  We've brushed it, but haven't sealed it yet.

The purple walls were stripped (it was painted wallpaper.)

I chose to go with a very neutral color in the room.  At first I really disliked it.  Now we find it rather calming.  But, it is the least colorful room in the house.  (If you don't count the bedspread, which we'll interchange with a brown and black one Niall chose.)

I guess we need to hang a few more things on the wall.

I love our mattress.  It's so comfortable.  The other night we got to sleep at a fancy Marriott and Niall said he couldn't wait to get home to our mattress!

Then and Now: Large Bedroom

The house has three bedrooms, a big one, a medium one and a small one.  We were deliberating on which room should be used for  what.  The deciding factor (for me) was when a friend from church came over to help strip the wallpaper the first week we owned the house.  She suggested having the largest bedroom for the girls.  It is the quietest (doesn't face the street) and they'll always have more stuff than us.  Niall claims I take advice from Mormon women over anyone, and it looks like he's right again!

The room has a big window that overlooks the back yard.  It's hard to show the size in photos, but it has a lot of room.  I kind of loved the wallpaper that was there when we looked at the house.

But the wallpaper came down and after skimming the walls, we painted them (okay, the decorators painted them) the same mis-tint blue we used in the kitchen and bathroom.  Wipeable!

The room originally had a fireplace, but we chose to take it out when we knocked through the kitchen/dining room below.  Structurally it needed to be removed because of the weight.

There was a closet in the room, but it was only about a foot deep.  We could have used it to store books or perhaps a few clothes on a peg.  Instead, we removed it completely and used the door for the coat closet downstairs.  Now there's a radiator where the fireplace used to be.

And, uh, nothing where the closet was.

The strip out of this room did not go according to plan.  There was a crazy leak up in the loft that flooded down into the bedroom.  We had to remove a chunk of the ceiling.

And then the chimney and wall got removed.  No big deal.

Removing the chimney gave us about 18 inches of extra space we didn't have before.  We chose to use the space in the bathroom, so the bedroom effectively stayed the same size.  (Minus the little narrow closet.)  Sorry guy, you are adorable but not efficient.

I did mention the window is large, didn't I?

The ceilings in the room (and in the whole house) were in pretty sorry shape.  Our amazing shopfitter joiners (aka really good carpenters) fixed the issue by putting in small pieces of timber overlaid with plasterboard (drywall.)  

The joiners also built a new wall between the bathroom out of metal studs and drywall.  And then everything got skimmed.

We flipped the door around so it opens into the wall instead of into the room.  Also, George Clarke (love his Home Bible) suggested moving the entire door frame over slightly in order to make room for storage behind the door.  Since we rebuilt the whole wall on that side it was easily done.  (By the joiners, not us.)  

See the bookshelf that tucks neatly behind the door?

Along with the rest of the house, the room got rewired.  I kind of loved the pink pendant light cover, but it did not fare well in the remodel.

So for now it's just a bare pendant light.

The room itself is kind of a hodgepodge right now.  It's more function over form right now.   We have the king size (queen in the US) guest bed and a toddler bed in there right now.  Hurray!  With my mom visiting, and more family and friends coming this summer, it's a set-up that works for now.

We haven't quite decided what to do with the storage.  For now we're just using what we have.  In time I'd like to put in a closet/built-in wardrobe on this wall.  And use some of the fabric Amber sent us to make soft furnishings.  But we'll see.

I think a little girl is very happy to have this as her bedroom!

Back Bedroom

This is the closest I have to a before picture of the back bedroom.  I just started tearing down wallpaper.

I read somewhere that painting over wallpaper (rather than removing it) is bad karma.  During the days it took to strip the wallpaper I tended to agree.

I started taking off the paper on the ceiling, but stopped.

The ceiling had to come out for the loft conversion so why waste my time?  As part of the loft conversion the ceiling was lowered about six inches.  The built-in wardrobe was removed.

The ceiling came down, and a slightly lower, reinforced, insulated one was put in its place.

The plaster on the outside wall was hacked off (that was a miscommunication, I intended to have the front wall plaster hacked off because of the damp!) and the window was packed out with insulation.  Then the wall was covered in plasterboard.

The room was rewired and skimmed with plaster.  We sanded and finished the floors and repainted.  We chose green because we liked how it looked with the light in the room.  (It has a western exposure.)

I did my best to fix up the airing cupboard.

When the baby is bigger I think we'll turn this into her big girl room.  But for now it's the guest room.

We found original tiles to the hearth under the laminate.

I started cleaning them when I realized they just may match the tiles for the front door.  The plan is to get a tiler in to try to use the hearth tiles for the front door and then use other tiles for the hearth.  Here's what the front door tiles look like now.

So folks, if you come to visit us, this is the room that awaits.  Original tiles, airing cupboard and all (at least for now.)