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.

I've been mentally putting together the living room for about a year now, so thought I'd share the main bones of it.  Some pricey items, some not so. Ok, mostly so.  Jielde loft lamp would be the biggest splurge, but I promise I would love him forever. And ever.  

So, the swish list (left to right, top to bottom):

• Original Jielde factory lamp, ebay
• Throw rug, Ferm Living (I found this one after posting about my other favourites yesterday)
• Rug, Ikea
• Cushion, John Lewis
• Coffee table, Vitra (wish list? more like pipe dream)
• Serving tray, Liberty

Mmmm, yellow. I love how it goes with black and white. Hence my newfound obsession with the blog Black. White. Yellow. Throw in a bit of grey and I'm yours.

Swish list

Found this in the April edition of Elle Decoration:

Its perfect for the couch, and desperately needed since the old doona I'm using is way too big and looks fugly.  Its conveniently available from Selfridges online, for the inconvenient price of £345.
Also on the cards at a slightly more reasonable price of £139, is any of Melin Tregwynt throws, although in particular I like the St David's Cross design in Silver Grey:

 Or Carew in Aqua:

They are also featured in a few hotels, of most interest is Boundary in Shoreditch, where they are used on the rooftop bar.  I'll definitely be having a cocktail or two here when summer finally arrives.

Kai Kristiansen chairs

As promised, the new kids have arrived. GG had promised a pair of armchairs in the style of Grete Jalke's lovely design from 1950's for my birthday (the finch print was a lovely surprise on the day since these didn't arrive in time).  Similar styles were also on the radar by Finn Juhl, Ole Wanscher and Hans Wegner.

We've been hunting since about May, but finding a reasonably priced pair within our limited budget has proved difficult. We could only find either really great single chairs, or cheaper looking English versions which normally have exposed screws rather than proper wood joins, and generally look a bit clunky. However they are also usually priced a lot lower, and its been tempting as the weeks go by to cop out and get a pair - luckily we were outbid a few weeks ago on such a set, as holding out has proved more than worthwhile... 

Just before heading to Paris we bid for and won 2 armchairs designed by Kai Kristiansen for Magnus Olesen, model #121 from about 1955.  Kai was born in 1929, thereby making him 4 years younger than me when he designed them.  He is probably more famous for these dining chairs, which out of interest the Japanese seem to love, as a large number of sites that turn up Kai's furniture for sale are in Japan.

They arrived yesterday morning, rather annoyingly packed in pieces of broken up polystyrene packing material, sending small white bubbles all over the room which took forever to sweep up, and will likely take thousands of years to degrade in landfill. Yippee.  But the chairs were well within budget and even better than described, although that wouldn't be hard since they came from the German eBay site and the whole description was in German.

Hmmm, looks like its time to get a real planter pot for the tree we inherited from the prior rental tennants.  I could do with an extra saucepan.

 

GG's not sure about their location just yet - he prefers the space to be completely open, without defining 'living room' from 'dining room' etc.  I like the definition. In fact I'm going to define it further with a rug and coffee table. You'll know when you're in my living room then, GG.

Guitar playing finch

...or is that "Finch playing guitar"?

Either way, thought I would show off my birthday present from GG, its a photographic print from an exhibition we went to at the Barbican recently - a walk-through aviary by French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot.   

Basically, it was a room full of electric guitars and cymbals, all plugged in and live, with about 50 zebra finches flying around, perching on, feeding from and making nests inside the instruments.  All the while creating the most beautifully random music. 

Céleste is a trained composer, and described it as a collaboration with the zebra finches.  It was brilliant.


Its up on a narrow wall section between two of the 3 front windows - you can see it in here in the background.

Short post this time, I realise I rambled way too long in the last post. Sorry for the self indulgance people.

entertainment unit hack

Well, apologies its been a while since that first happy post many moons ago, its turned out to be harder to find the time to do this than I first thought... That's not to say that there hasn't been movement at the station! Sorry, that's an Australianism.


Today I'd like to share with you GG's stirling efforts in creating a cable-free entertainment unit.  If you look here at the first photos put up you'll see the less than perfect temporary solution we had to begin with: my Stag desk as a tv stand, and the amp etc on the floor.  Although, they'd been on the floor for the last 3 years so were probably feeling quite at home.


Anyway, the new unit is a 1960's sideboard we bought on ebay for the bargain price of about £120.  It was a wedding gift to the original owners, and you could see from the photos it had been resting in the same place for the next 50 years.  When we got it home it smelled just like my Nanna's house. 

So as GG proceeded to tell me how he would just need to drill here, nail there, and glue down there its no surprise that I got a little panicked that this perfect specimen had been in our house for less than 10 minutes and we were going to 'ruin' it.  Eventually though I got over it, realising that for it to be of any use over the next 50 years it had to leap into the 21st century and help us hide the entrails of our audio-visual equipment. And so I let Graham get on with delivering what turned out to be a very elegant solution to an age old problem.  The photos are a bit deceiving with respect to size, its actually about 2.2m long but it looks a bit stumpy in the photos.

As you can see, no cables in sight!  We removed the concertina door on the right hand side so that the tv remotes would work without having to open it up all the time, which I think it gives it a nice asymmetry.  Sorry for the poor photo quality, should have remembered to do this during the day!

Let me know what you think! 


The 4 brown glass ornaments are tealight candle holders (Ithink).  I bought them for $10 at a flea market in Chelsea, NYC. They are made by Dansk and probably worth $2 but I love the shape of them.  In this photo you can also see the ~1930's lemonade jug that I got for my 30th birthday from my lovely friends, complete with lemons.  It came with 4 glasses as well, but I'll save these for another upcoming post showing off my new entertaining bits.


Partly due to the lighting, but this photo really shows up how badly we need to paint those discoloured cream walls white!


Lots more interesting things to share over the next few weeks including the unveiling of our new Eames DSW dining chairs, a new bedroom blind, a growing collection of mismatched crockery, and the grand designs for our bathroom extension... stay tuned.

welcome

I've been thinking about creating this blog since my boyfriend GG and I bought our first flat in December last year.  The flat itself is in need of a bit of work, and given that I get so much enjoyment out of following other home improvement and design blogs, I figured someone else might enjoy reading about ours... Luckily for you, its 5 months in and we've not yet made any significant improvements :)


But first, some context... We are both Australian, and have been in London for 4 years.  We both work in fairly uncreative jobs in the software and business sectors, and find ourselves craving the creative outside of working hours... I have a passion for good design be it for style or function... I love modernist furniture and architecture, recycled homewares and old buildings... In all cases I like to honour the time and effort that went into making something the first time around by using it again.  


I'm hoping to explore the amateur end of the architecture and design spectrum, and hope to move from mere appreciation to contribution - at least in our own domain as we go about the process of putting our style stamp on the 62sqm of London that is ours (in the mortgaged leasehold sense anyway).


Combine the unfulfilled inner artist with a love of industrial architecture, and it is no surprise that we wanted to live out the 1980's NYC artist's dream of living in a 'loft' (although that word doesn't have quite the same meaning in the UK as every terrace house in the country has or is in the process of converting the roof space into usable rooms - the 'loft conversion').  Anyway, we of course searched out a flat in a converted warehouse, and after some ups and downs managed to find a great flat in an old Brewery in our favourite suburb of Clerkenwell. Here is the exterior:

Our flat is 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 1 living area with open plan kitchen.  Here is the floorplan:

Room layout was a critical factor for me (much less so for GG!), and there were a few key selling points here: 

1. Bathroom right next to bedroom; I personally hate curtains and blinds and love using the fact that we are above street level to get away without them. What I would hate is having to run past my curtain-less windows in my towel to get back to the bedroom every time I take a shower.
2. Bathroom not ensuite; in a 1 bedroom flat, unless you have visitors every day this is not a huge issue, but I do think its nice for visitors to be able to get to the loo without seeing that I haven't made my bed.
3. Washing machine not in the kitchen; nothing spoils the calm of a living area like the sound of a spin cycle. Its not in the bathroom either which is also a bonus; it has its very own cupboard in the hallway.
4. Wide entrance hall; halls might be wasted space, but in a country like this where you actually have a need for winter coats I am beginning to appreciate this odd little room.

But layout aside, the flat has some great original features; 11ft ceilings with concrete beams, huge crittal-style factory windows, and a cast iron supporting pillar in the living room.  


Here are some interior photos taken in the first 2 weeks of moving in:

The current state of the flat is quite liveable, depending on your point of view.  There isn't a built in kitchen at the moment, just what was already here when we moved in: a freestanding kitchen sink and a freestanding cabinet, both from Ikea.  The remainder of our bench space comes from the under-counter fridge and freezer (that currently have no over-counter).


The bathroom is a bit of a layout and style travesty, its so small you can barely swing the door open, it has zero positive style elements and recently has become less than functional (broken mixer tap means the water comes out scalding hot and we are resorting to baths instead):

So, as you can guess there is a long list of improvements to be made, with bathroom fast rising to the top of the priority list, followed by kitchen and then decorating... Now that we have been living here for a while the momentum is building to start doing some of the major work.  We have lots of exciting ideas, ulitmately the budget will make the final decision but I'm looking forward to sharing some of the pipe dreams and the realities with you over the next few months :)