Our house: One month, and future plans- part one.

Make yourself comfortable to enjoy the latest in "our house," as well as a longer post about a plans for each space. I skipped a week or two, because things started looking more the same, week to week, as we settled in and breathed easier. Plus, a lot of the stuff we've done is kinda pointless to photograph- like cleaning between the slats on the hall cupboard, or getting quotes done on stuff, or the endless discussions.

The master bedroom:

Boxes. Although, these are likely to stay in our room- the first, with the pile of clothes, are our out of season clothes. The second plastic tub holds extra bed linen. The last box has stuff I have no idea what to do with right now. Yeah, we've been playing with paints. The blue didn't work out.

Our wardrobe doesn't fit our clothes, never mind all our bulky jackets. Our curtains aren't very fancy. In fact, they look like crap. We have amazing roller blinds on the outside, so it doesn't really matter too much- it's just during the day, when the blinds are raised, we want something between us and the street. When those babies are down, it's as dark as a tomb in all the rooms. Having a house that came with good shutters was what sold M on the house.

The only change in the past two weeks is that we've dragged our bookcase into our room and make it my bedside table. I got this bookcase from Office works when I first moved down here, since I needed something to hold my text books. When I moved it in with M, it ended up in Willow's room. Then it was Willow's wardrobe, hence the pretty backing paper and the curtains, then we shifted it to the bathroom to hold bathroom stuff. Oh, and we've run an extension lead across to M's side, since previously I had the only power point. Now we both have our own power boards, and we have a lamp in our room. It's the little things that make it much more homely now.

Sooner plans:

• Repaint, once we've done the main parts of the house. 
• Fix up the wardrobe- it has a really bad layout inside. So, rip all that out, rip out the carpet, repaint, new rod hung the full way across, some drawers put in, maybe a second rail.... repaint the doors, and put new, modern handles on them. Oh, and remove the mirrors on the outside of the doors. Both M and I find it really weird to be in bed, and staring at a reflection of ourselves.  It's also a bit weird because of the way the mirrors are placed, you can't see who is beside you in bed. 
• Shift the cupboard from to spare room to in here to store fabric. 
• Hang our curtains properly. The curtains were in Willow's room at the old place, and they're fine here- they fit- but I didn't use enough curtain hooks since I've robbed Peter to pay Paul, so to speak, since we have more curtains here. 

Later plans:

• Do something about the whole curtain thing. It's not too big a deal- we have SOMETHING up, but it's just nice to live like a civilised family. Ie, clean the venetian that's there, get proper curtains (with thermal lining? Even just curtains that fit...) Also, if we get some proper curtains up, it will help keep the room warmer in winter and cooler in summer.
• Bookcase under that window. A long, low one, maybe with a blanket box down one end. Hey, we have books we need to store SOMEWHERE. This seems as a good a place as any. I'm thinking something like this, with doors. 
• New mattress. M purchased his mattress before I got down here. It's very soft, and perfect for one person to sleep on. However, with two? Yeah. Not so comfortable. I'm also a fan of firmer mattresses. 
• New bed frame. Right now we just have a ensemble. We're planning on turning the upper shed into a guest room, so it can go in there. Later. Much later. 
• Bedside tables. Because... we are grown ups. Mismatched melamine furniture is cute and all, but... eventually we will get around to adulthood. Before the move we had galvanized steel shelves from Ikea. New bedside tables and bed frames are luxury items, so they're much later down the track. M complains about the sharp edges on our current bed side tables. Personally... I'm kinda ok with it, because having a bookcase next to my bed is hugely functional. Even if this means I'm kinda sleeping on top of the family's tax paperwork and Willow's immunisation records, since they're in folders on the bookcase by my bed. 
• Do something about the skirting boards and window trim. The people have spoken. Pink trim is OUT. White trim is IN. The window trim should be pretty straightforward, but not so sure about the skirting boards, since they're pretty damaged. They're that fluffy fake wood stuff, so it might not even be worth repairing them. So, replace them? Sounds like something to consider later. I'm also tossing up on black window trim, like here, or here. It looks smart with pale walls, and adds a bit of contrast to the room. It could be a real pain to paint over on day in the far future though. 
• Rip up the carpet. Our current carpet has grown on us. Sure, it's like 30 years old, but it's really good quality and it's also really soft underfoot. As long as we're not looking at it, we're actually pretty content for now to ignore it and deal with other stuff. Underneath we have polished floorboards. So, we might rip up the old stuff, remove the tacks, and have floorboards, or we might get a large rug, or we might re-carpet. Either way, we'll do the skirting boards at the same time. In the meantime, we will happily avoid looking down. Out of sight, out of mind is our new motto. We will probably do our room last. 

The living room.

Remember when it looked like this? It still looks the same, just less plastic drop sheets. That suede wall's been sanded, and we will paint this weekend. Then there is the "shift everything back" and "slight rearrange to living room since we've been here a month and we have a better idea of what does and doesn't work in here."

Sooner: 

• Repaint. Again, it's a slow job, because of the sanding, then cleaning it all up, then M goes to work, and it's winter and it takes forever for stuff to dry.... also, we can't pick a colour, that never helps. We are losing our minds over the colour. 
• Something with that study desk. It's being debated. I like it there since we have no where else to put it. M does not. It's practical-ish. We COULD in theory do away with it and be ok. So, the discussion continues. We've agreed that the terracotta red wall is warping our perception of space and how things look, so we will re-discuss this post paint. There's a few things we're going to change about the layout now we are more settled. 
• Down lights. It's REALLY dark in there at night. You can't even read. In a previous post, with the photo taken at night, you can see the hallway light is MUCH brighter, and it's just your bog standard hallway light.

Later: 

• Lace curtain instead of the Venetian blind. We have cheap plastic (and very dirty) Venetians through the house. I have no idea where the previous owner got the one in the living room from, since it's 2.6m long, and it's rare to find a blind that's even 2.4m off the shelf. The bigger a blind gets, the heavier it gets, and the quicker it will break. I don't really feel like it's good use of our money to get a large Venetian custom made when this one dies. So, when this plastic blind dies, it will go to the giant recycling bin in the sky, and I'll just string up some lace curtains for daytime privacy, and put some nice light blocking curtains up to help control the temperature of the room, night time privacy and to block out light when tv watching. And yes, I know I could CLEAN the venetians the previous owner left us... but they're plastic. I'm terrified if I try removing them to hose them down, they'll break. And then we will have to shell on new blinds RIGHT NOW when that's not in our budget. Better to leave them be and try to not move them too much. I already broke a few slats on the kitchen one trying to clean it.
• Verticals removed, and replaced with a curtain. It's a pain in the butt fiddling with the cords when you want to go in or out. 
• Trim needs doing. Around the windows and door frames only. We will worry about the skirting boards later. 
• Rods. Yeah. We have to hang the curtains off something. The current rod in the window is bowing under the weight of the lace, so it definitely won't cope with a heavier blind, and there's nothing about the sliding door anyway. A nice thick rod.
• New rug. Thinking flat woven wool. We have a brown rug Mark's mother gave us, and it's functional. It's a shag pile, so things keep vanishing into it.
• A coffee table. Something that can easily be shifted so kids can run around, but also the right size to sit around to do a puzzle or play a board game.
• Plants. Plants are always the solution. They make every room look better.
• Heating. This might be a next winter thing. Meanwhile, we shall shiver through and wait for summer.
• Pictures and art on the walls.

Willow's room.

M gave Willow a packet of this monkey hooks before we moved, explaining that when we moved, she could put them on her door. It was a little thing, but Willow was SO EXCITED to finally do it. There were three in the packet, but one is on the spare room door, since it was needed there. We all have hooks on our doors- Willow's two holds her towel and her dressing gown. 

It's the start of a collection. Willow says she wants 10 of them on her wall. I gave her the little rainbow one, and the purple one is from M's brother's missus. 

After the dream catchers, you have Willow's wardrobe. Also, her rainbow curtains. She asked if once we moved, she could have a rainbow curtain in her room and I agreed. I'm happy with how they turned out, but if I did them again they would turn out better. I'd reduce the yellow area and increase the purple and violet at the top and bottom. Also, I'd hem them first with cotton thread- It's impossible trying to figure out what could thread to hem them in. (They're not hemmed yet. I don't have room/ clean working space). When she first saw these hanging on the line, Willow just beamed. "They're beautiful," she breathed. "I just can't stop looking at them." With a clean neutral wall, that carpet gone in spring and her growing wall of dream catchers, I think Willow will have a stunning, bright room that is so uniquely her. 

The current inside of Willow's infamous wardrobe. See? Once you rip up that ghastly carpet... there's beautiful polished floorboards!!! On top of the wardrobe are several plastic bags of her clothes, labelled with labels such as "big winter clothes," "summer clothes" "big summer clothes" "summer pjs" "big winter pjs" as well as an extra dressing gown. The cardboard box holds "other people's stuff." Stuff to give to her friends, or stuff her friend's have left behind, or stuff her friends might use if they suddenly drop in and then we decide to have a sleep over- so there's over night nappies in there for one friend, and bigger boy pjs that two other friends can use (hand me downs from someone), and a bigger size of clean knickers for another friend... Anyways. The top of her wardrobe isn't pinterest worthy, but it's organised and efficient. 

Sooner.

• Repaint walls. New drinking game: every time I mention "repaint" you take a swig. Willow has picked out a deep pinky red swatch and a sunflower yellow swatch as suggestions to paint her room. We are going with a clean neutral colour since a) it's cheaper since it's what we're doing the rest of the house in b) kids tend to have really colourful stuff anyway, even when they don't have rainbow curtains. 
• Repaint window trim and wardrobe door. Are you taking a drink?
• Mount blind. Willow currently has pink trim on her windows. Once we repaint that, we can stick her new blind in here. It's plain white. Willow is disgusted. 
• Hem her rainbow curtains. I've dyed them, but since we've been sanding and repainting, I haven't had room to bring out my sewing machine. They also need more hooks (which I have a shortage of). They don't hang right with a lack of hooks- they just look like sheets in the window.
• Get fairy lights. She wants fairy lights and is constantly disgruntled that I've done her rainbow curtains, but I'm yet to wire up any fairy lights for her. It's all about the money, chicken. 

Other corner of Willow's room. She refers to the top of that long bookcase as her "collection shelf." The white tubs hold her clothes- pants, skirts, pj tops and pj bottoms. Underwear is store in a plastic basket in her wardrobe, and her singlets are in an old fruit salad bowl by the wardrobe door. Socks are in a plastic basket next to her shoe basket. Eventually, she will have proper drawers to hold all her stuff. In the mean time- it works and it's free. 

Watching a movie in bed. The pink flamingo stickers were REALLY annoying to put up- I think it took me about 10 goes to get them level AND lined up. We've just shoved pictures up on the hooks already there. M got Willow a Frozen poster, but we want to laminate or frame it first. 

Later.

• New to her bed. M's family gave us his niece's old trundle bed. So, eventually that will go into Willow's room, since my mum is coming to visit in a few months. Willow's bed will go into the spare room. 
• New layout. Natural side effect of a new bed- we will have to rearrange her room. Her bed isn't at it's full single size- it was just easier with the move to shrink it for moving... and we left it shrunk. It meant we could dump more stuff in her room, since you know, smaller bed. Her play kitchen will go outside, and her long cube bookcase will go upright. Where it is now, Willow's bed will go there (since it will be a VERY tight squeeze to fit a full length single bed in along that wall. The other walls have a window or a wardrobe, so it's along this wall or... I don't know. 
• Remove carpet. Maybe before we shift in the other bed? I'm in favour of floorboards with a rug on top, although not sure if it will be a year round rug or just a cooler months rug. All this will be happening in the the warmer months anyway. I'll probably put this rug in her room since it's only $50 and I think it will look really good.
• New-new bed. Unlike the three projects above, this is probably something we will do around summer of 2015-2016, rather than this spring- summer coming up. She will be at school, and growing up, and needing more storage. We're looking at those raised up types of beds with storage beneath- not too high, since we have a fan, so not a bunk. See below. We can't pick one with a bookcase on the end because there isn't quite enough room to get in there to get a book out.
• Hooks on the back of her door.
• Her own mirror. 
• A wooden valence? 

$1,400 from Domayne. This one is the most expensive. It also looks the smartest, and will grow very well with Willow since it's a blank slate. We can mount a bed rail on it, so Willow doesn't fall out. I'm worried about how she will climb up and down though. This seems better for an older kid. Which... she will eventually be.

$1,200 from 40 Winks. I like the design, but it only comes in red, so not quite a blank slate like the others. I can see this maybe looking a bit childish as she gets older- like when she's entering her teenaged years. This one has everything we need- a way to climb up, built in bedrail, somewhere for her books, her own desk, and plenty of storage. It's my favourite of the three finalists. 

$400 from Fantastic Furniture.  Again, we could mount a bedrail. This one is the cheapest by a lot. Not as many drawers as she'd need for when she's a bit older, but the bookcase would be handy for her books, and the tub on wheels would be handy for her stuffed toys. It has a built in ladder. No desk.