Sleeping lofts!

I've been meaning to tell you - we're not crazy!  A while back I shared our hair-brained idea for a shallow mezzanine above the bathroom.   Although I found a few pictures here and there on the interwebs showing these kind of spaces, there was not much around.  And it is the kind of idea that is hard to know if it will work until you (1) have a milimetre accurate sketchup drawn and even better (2) have seen it in person.. and at that stage... BOOM! You realise that its freaking brilliant.

While we stopped short of sticking GG's parents up there (its still a little precarious with the A-frame ladder we're temporarily using), his brother and sister had the joys of sleeping up there at different times. Great views out the window and of the flat, and a homely little space to get a good kip.  Small issue of the bright lights in the morning, but we'll fix that soon with a blind up there.

And a few weeks ago I found this post on Remodelista about built in sleeping lofts, which shows that many others have put the same idea into practice:

Also serves as good inspiration on the ladder front, we're not quite sure what to do there yet...

New bathroom!

As promised, the new bathroom.  As a small reminder, here is the old one:

• Tiny bathroom cabinet with the doors on upside down so the pull-handles are at the top - check
• 3 backsplash tiles above fugly sink, placed at a 5 degree angle - check
• Enourmous bulbous shower-bath in a tiny bathroom - check
• Glass screen with broken handle - check
• Ugly round flourescent lights that belong in a railway underpass - check
• Space for 2 people to brush their teeth - check (provided 1 person stands in the hallway)

 

Wow, that's an image that is so familiar, and yet reminds me of so much pain. I almost miss it.

Even GG is having 2 showers a day!  Its a far cry from the final death throes of our old bathroom - only scalding hot water available from the bath tap which meant filling it an hour before and then washing your hair with an ice cream container.  For once I was loving working away from home!

Sorry the photos are a bit dark.  

The glass shelf isn't actually glued down yet, there are a couple of wonky tiles that the builder has promised to fix, and will be done when the tiler comes back to do the kitchen splashback.

And the shower tray was a major drama. However in the few intervening weeks what seemed like the biggest disaster at the time has now receded from memory.  Suffice to say, originally we wanted black, now we're totally happy with the white, and there was a bit of extra work and messing about to get it to fit. It creaks a tiny bit at the open end, which is pretty annoying but given whats underneath it, I guess we can't have expected much else.  I will say, it is fascinating knowing exactly how you're bathroom has been put together under all those shiny tiles and neat groutlines.

And we couldn't decide whether to go for grey grout or white, but in the end went for white since it could have been a bit overpowering with floor to ceiling tiles... Still undecided but its too late now. Maybe we'll splash out on the kitchen.

You can't quite see it in the pics, but we spent a disproportionate amount of time deciding on a toilet brush (compared to say, the fridge and freezer, worth 10 times as much).  Its from Labour and Wait, my favourite little homewares store on Redchurch st in Shoreditch.  Everything was so shiny and modern in there that I wanted to rustic it up a bit.

I was also hunting for a nice handwash dispenser.  GG was all for the Vipp, but at £85 we thought it a bit steep. Particularly as GG doesn't seem to use handwash but I try not to think about it too much.

But I found the perfect soap dispenser when I was out shopping in Shoreditch, and happened upon Aesop, an Australian apothecary, whatever that means.  Bath stuff, as far as I can tell.  And I picked this up, recommended by Remodelista, in spectacular oldy worldy type packaging.  

Unfortunately the bottle is plastic, not glass.  Even more unfortunately the price wasn't marked, and I went slightly pale as she said the price was £25, but was too shocked to back out of it while standing there with my card in hand.  I don't know what I thought the shop assistant would think of me if I put it back - probably 'smart girl' rather than 'rich twat' like she was actually thinking. Oh well, its there now, it looks great, and I guess I'll just keep refilling it with cheap stuff once its empty.  But my hands do smell nice in the meantime.

House warming present

When we moved back into our flat 3 weeks ago we had a 99% complete bathroom (minus the glass shelf above the sink), and a 50% complete kitchen.  That is, we had cabinets in place, but no worktop and therefore no sink or stovetop...  We faced it bravely for a few days, and after living in a friend's sharehouse for 2 months we were just glad to be home.  So we washed our dishes in the bathroom sink and cooked our toast on the bare top of the built in fridge but it wasn't pretty. Toast crumbs are now caught in areas of our appliances that should never have seen the light of day. 

Luckily, our builder knew this would be a nightmare of proportions Epiales himself would aspire to.  And so when he came around a couple of days later to do a few touch ups, he gifted us this beauty as a housewarming present:

It all works, including the dishwasher!  Unfortunately without cabinet handles, everything is tres difficult to open now, but I can certainly deal with that.  He made it from a scrap worktop and the cheapest sink money can buy.  Its all absolutely brilliant, and a testament to what a great guy he was to work with.

I'm so itching to rip that protective blue stuff off, its killing me every time I look at it.  I showed the photo to a colleague who commented on my bold colour choice.


Those lamp shades were originally destined for the dining table. We both had brave looks in our eyes as we pulled them out of the box, but deep in our hearts we knew they were way too small to meet the criteria of 'whopping great big lamps' that we had spoken of for so long.  And since GG was always scared of my idea to have '3 burning suns' (aka globes without shades) hanging over the worktop, we decided to keep them and put them up in the kitchen instead. I'm pretty happy with them now they're up. More pics soon of the new dining table lights.


Here's a close up of our new tap:, by Paini. Choosing a tap is hard.  So many types, and most of them look really ugly in isolation, but then you probably wouldn't even notice them once installed. But then you have to choose it in isolation. Tough job, but this is what we came up with.

He's looking a bit wonky there, because the sink that our builder bought (bless him) ain't the strongest and the tap is probably not yet bolted down as much as such a manly tap would need.


The last part of the kitchen is 'Bo', so named because he was inspired by an over-priced similarly functioned piece we saw in  BoConcept. You can see something similar here - its that tall drink of water on the right hand side.  Ours is the Ikea hacker's version - 2 stacked over-counter cabinets and a couple of side panels. I'm quite pleased with him and frankly while I wasn't having any overhead cupboards, we needed more space than the 1 under counter cupboard we ended up with.

In any case, I didn't realise how far we'd come, until I looked back over a few photos from the day we packed everything up for the builders to start.  I'm all for the industrial look boviously, but t looks so much better with all the pipework painted white, and without that fugly extractor fan.  We had the gas pipe in the far corner moved through the wall and it now runs down the bedroom wall. Frankly I just couldn't deal with having a hole in my stainless steel worktop for it to run through.

Still a lot of work to be done, our friend Rob is making the stainless steel top and then we need to tile the backsplash (white non-bevelled subways, same as in the bathroom).  

Rob's in the trade and has access to a full workshop full of industrial tools, but unfortunately they can't work with steel more than 2.5m in length.  This was a bit of a conundrum for a while, and we considered having it made somewhere else, but eventually came up with a great solution - split the worktop with a feature wood section. On an angle. More details to follow soon, GG is in the midst of concocting a sketchup for it...

Hallelujah

We're back.  But its been an up and down couple of weeks. And we're still dealing with the aftermath as you can see below, hence the absence of updates - despite there being SO MUCH to blog about...

Within 2 hours of the builder's call to say the painters were done, we were back in (but steering clear of the walls).  It was all awesome for about 15 minutes, until we realised the boiler was broken.  The first shower in my long-awaited sparkling new bathroom involved a kettleful of boiling water and the new plastic bin from under the kitchen sink, temporarily seconded for the fondly nick-named 'bucket shower'.  

Now its 2 weeks later, and we've had our last bucket shower.  Boiler was replaced on Tuesday.  Budget was looking ok until we had to add that bad boy on to the bottom line.  It was ridiculously expensive, even at the mates-rates we managed to get by hiring a friend (£1300).  But I'd forgotten all about that by the time I'd turned myself into a prune having my first extended and super hot shower under that shiny new chrome head.

Absolutely everything is covered in a thick layer of dust despite the dust covers, which were admittedly a bit haphazard.  The floor is stil filthy, and our feet turn black walking on it.  I've just spent tonight (yes, Saturday night) cleaning the bedroom, continuing to file our clothes into the Great Wall of Wardrobes, and washing the floor.  But given that I haven't been able to do the lounge room for all the stuff everywhere, it probably won't make much difference.


But despite this, the absolute highlight of the last 24 hours at least, has been sending the dishwasher off on her maiden voyage (on the eco-setting of course). Oh how I'd dreamt of this moment.  It was almost everything I'd imagined, except that the Ikea Whirlpool quality isn't quite as good as it could be... but I guess it was bottom of the range, and we did get 3 appliances for the price of 2 (we also bought the under counter fridge and freezer).  The sliding mechanism of the top drawer means it sometimes misses the connection with the top spray hose at the back, and then the door won't shut.  


Anyway, here's a sneak peek or two, with more detailed posts and much better photos to follow at a later point when we've tidied up and found the camera...
Wardrobes. No more suitcases, at least on the weekends.  Unfortunately still travelling for work every week.

Kitchen lighting, shelves, and some Orla Kiely ceramic containers with wooden lids for tea from our Mums (luckily enought to get both for my birthday this year).  Stainless steel shelves still have the protective wrapping on in this pic.

More soon!
Happy weekend.


 

Progress

Wow, its amazing how much progress can be made, when you have 6 guys crawling your flat with brushes, electric tile saws and wirecutters... Then again, its amazing how much progress can be made when its 45 degrees and you're just a lone ranger in your underpants.

Anyway, lets put the discussion of time and DIY talent shortfalls aside, and move onto talking about paint. White paint to be exact.  I have to say, I didn't look at a single colour swatch in order to choose the colour white.  Some may say that's madness. I say I'm not enough of an connoisseur to tell the difference.  GG and I talk in the most technical of terms.  Brightness.  GG: "Do you think its too bright?"  Me: "Nah, I think it should have been even brighter."  And then silence for a while before moving onto look at something else.

So, in chronological order we have plastering complete and first lick of paint applied.  Again, sorry for the photo quality, the camera is buried in the bedroom somewhere...

The painting continued and the place really started to take shape:

My favourite photo shows the difference between old and new paint behind where the kitchen cabinets will go:

We've decided to paint the radiators as well, a suggestion made by the decorators.  Hard to tell here, but they look decidedly crappy next to the white walls.

And in the last couple of days the kitchen has started to take shape...  that funny cabinet on the wall will be our pantry/extra storage, since by the time we jammed in a sink, dishwasher, fridge, freezer and oven, there was only space for 1 set of drawers.  And I've previously ranted about my aversion to overhead cupboards.  However, we were daydreaming in BoConcept one day and I spotted this vertical single wall cabinet which floats on the wall and I loved it.  Ours will have 4 handleless doors and is made of 2 stacked wall cabinets from Ikea.  It looks quite large in this photo but I'm hoping once the white doors are revealed and the rest of the furniture is in the room you won't notice it too much.

Here is GG inspecting the new oven. Finally! We we will soon be able to cook baked goods. If only I knew how to bake.  Since we never hooked up the electrics for our old standalone cooker, we've been surviving solely on stove top culinary delights for 18 months now.  Oh, and of course our portable grill, "George".  

And the beast itself.  We splurged a little on the visible appliances in the kitchen.  Since we ended up going with Ikea cabinets and hidden appliances, thought it might be nice to up the ante on the hob and oven.  Both have glass rather than stainless steel surfaces. I can't wait to try them out!  Might just need to invest in a new kettle, since the old one might find his self esteem a little shaken as he stares down at his chipped reflection all day...

Here is the matching hob, the photo isn't that great unfortunately but that didn't stop us basing our purchasing decision for both the oven and hob solely on the one crappy picture below.  Slightly scary buying some of the biggest ticket items without having clapped eyes on them in person, but that's pretty much been the theme of our approach to both flat-hunting (stepped inside a total of 7 flats, 1 of which was just for funsies pre-deposit) and reno fitout.  Ah, the intertubes, how we love you.

 

All in all, everything starting to look good there!

Later this week, an update on the bathroom, which is nearly done! We even think we might have moved back in next week...

I love lamp

I also love Anchorman, but that's another story.

For the last month we have literally been on a spending spree for everything we are fitting in the flat.  I never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually a little tired of it.  The list of outstanding items is shrinking though (just as the bottom line of what we've spent is expanding!).  One of the most fun things we've bought recently is the lighting for the kitchen and dining room.  

I've been obsessing over vintage industrial lampshades for the past 2 years, and have been scouting antique shops and the like for a while. Remember these?  We even made a trip to Berlin, in which I promised myself and GG we would source the perfect lamps for less than half the cost of what we could get them for in the UK... only to come home empty handed having realised we both needed to travel directly to work in different locations the next day.  Didn't think my clients would really understand if I turned up with a battered old lampshade under my arm, not to mention the difficulty of (either one of us) single handedly lugging several of those things around.

And then before we knew it, crunch time. The builder was asking us exactly where the light fittings would go, what they looked like, connections etc and we were totally undecided!!  I started looking on the internet, found some excellent market research by the Mouse Hunter, which exactly mirrored my own dilemmas, and somehow from that blog, ended up at Historic Lighting.  

Hoorah!  They ticked all the boxes of awesome lamp designs for both dining and kitchen, they sell all the fittings, cable and chain, are located in the UK, and do free shipping.  But guys, here's a tip - INCLUDE VAT IN YOUR PRICES! You nearly lost me at the checkout.  I know, I know - if you go back and look at each page it says 'subject to VAT', but honestly when there's one of these georgous beauties staring at you from the page, my peepholes get a little distracted.

But that's not the one we bought in the end.  We got 3 of these in black, because they are slightly smaller, and we can fit 3 of them between the beams on the ceiling directly above the dining table.  Had a minor moment of panic as I realised we would have to fix the dining table in place for good, given that I have been having recurring daydreams about the different ways we could position the furniture in the flat.  GG, being a creature of habit, was shocked to think I would even consider moving an item of furniture from its home of 1.5 years.  Anyway, I'm still not entirely comfortable with it, but its probably something we should have experimented with before we stacked up all the furniture and gave the builder our keys.

Actually, they're kind of small in real life. Almost too small. Oh well, we'll just whack them up and see, we can actually replace them fairly easily if we wanted to sell these ones later...

In the meantime, here's a few teaser shots of the place.  Completed plaster walls on the exterior of the bathroom and hallway:

And tiled shower wall:

Our little subway tiles aren't looking so little after all (we could have gone a smaller size)... but given how long its taking the tiler (2 days work at this point!), I don't think we would have wanted to pay for the extra time...  Starting to look a little lighter and brighter in there.

Today there were 6 guys working in there! That's a lot of people to have in our small flat. They're even working out in the communal hallway, cutting up tiles with a noisy saw, and the hallway is rammed full of our stuff.  Good thing GG didn't come along or he would have had a conniption.  He's a little worried that the lovely young lady upstairs will take her revenge when we move back in by kick starting her little 2am parties again.

Apparently the painters will be done by Monday. Yikes. Then things will really look different.  GG and I have the fun job tonight of going around to the flat and packing up the bedroom a bit more orderly so they can move the stuff out and into the living area in order to paint it...  Fun Friday night times.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

 

3 months in 30 seconds

Oh, has it really been that long?!? I vageuly remember posting about how proud I was to have kept it up for a year, and how GG and I were launching a new look to celebrate.  Got you all excited and then... nada.


No excuses, really although I could try plenty on.  But we do have some progress to share, so get your cuppa ready, its going to be a whirlwind tour of the last 3 months in shitpoor resolution/lighting/framed blackberry photos... 


April: Berlin for GG's birthday, Paris with my friend Louise from university in Perth, now contently blogging all the way from Montreal.


Highlights were (1) the Friedrichshain flea market:

Lampy!!

(2) Mies van der Rohe Niunationale Gallerie, spectacular architecture, and stocking a few from my fav artist Franz Marc:

And (3) currywurst and beers in the park:

 Paris. Wine. Cheese. Tasty bits.

 And this view from our little studio apartment.

May. Enjoying new shoes from Paris. Walks around the neighbourhood admiring the local architecture. Flying back and forth to Spain for work and enjoying the local cuisine.

June. Finalise builder selection. Confirm start date. BEGIN RENOVATION. Yes, you read correctly, we started!


So, in photos, here is the progress so far. Stage 1: Teardown. There used to be a bathroom there! Toilet's a little exposed at this stage, but functional nonetheless.  In this photo you can see where the builders have ripped the floor out to extend the bathroom by about 70cm beyond the original wall.  Sounds like a lot of fuss for not much gain, but actually 70cm + layout change = a bathroom big enough for 2!

Stage 2, construction begins. We ummed and ahhed about whether we should go ahead with our hairbrained psuedo-mezzanine/loft idea, and in the end we thought, bugger it lets just put our crazy-assed stamp on this place for good. And here it is, in frame form:

If you're thinking its not a lot of space up there, then you'd be both wrong and right, since its about the size of our bedroom, but with the headroom of a bunk bed.  Which is how we'll use it; its a sleeping nook and storage area, and we're going to stick our guests up there.  As long as they're not afraid of heights. Not sure how they'll get up there yet.

On the left you can see the new hallway with lower ceiling, I love how it really feels like the room really opens out when you emerge from the other side. And look how fugly that toilet is! After scouring the internet for days looking for the perfect poocatcher, I'm unfortunately very well versed in every curve, feature and style of ye olde toilettes,


Next came the internal cladding and plumbing. Minor setback as we decided to add an additional showerhead on a hose as well as the fixed showerhead, but our fantastic builder took it all in his stride and accommodated us with no complaints.
The internal view of the bathroom - the walk in shower is at the far end, the width of the room.  You can see the 2 built in shelves for shampoos.  The bathroom cabinets are actually 2 x 2-door flatpack units from Ikea, but are the perfect size and saved the builder a heap of work.

And that's how it stands right now.  Shower tray poised for installation (that's a bit of a nightmare story for another time), tiler and plasterer due onsite tomorrow. Kitchen appliances and cabinets on site. All systems go.


Sorry for the marathon post. But you're all up to speed now! I'll post a little more next week about the fittings, appliances and tiles we've picked.  I'llbe back more regularly now we actually have solid progress to write home about.