Wednesday 27 February 2013

Happy Birthday Tom

It's Toms birthday today :)

He's at work, and we don't have any big plans tonight but we're going to see a Pink Floyd tribute band tomorrow night at the town hall, so just a soppy birthday post today dedicated to my man, happy birthday babe!
 We've been all over together, road trips
Carribean Islands
Holidays with friends
 
He puts up with my silly fears, like not walking over the golden gate bridge in case I fall off...
He takes time do things I wouldn't usually bother to do, like hire rowing boats (and then does all the rowing)
 He always drives on long trips
 All over the world!
He tells me when I'm starting to get sunburn, and doesn't mind applying cream to my back about 50 times a day
He points out for me when we cross a river
He's adventurous
And a musician
He's handsome
 And keeps in shape
 We have fun together
He pursuades me to do things I usually wouldn't, like snorkelling
 And going on speedboats
He still surprises me sometimes after all these years
He's dependable, you can always count on him to be a stable foundation
We met through these guys
And the rest of his friends
 and he has some special friends
 I mean really special
 He gets involved with my crazy, big family
And I get involved with his
 We're partners in crime
We have our mad pets
p.s they say happy birthday too...

I wouldn't trade him for anything

Happy Birthday Tom!

Tuesday 26 February 2013

The Other Shoe Rack

I mentioned in the last post I bought 2 shoe hangers, even though all my shoes fitted into one. This is because I saw a picture on Pinterest that gave me a bit of an epiphany regarding this cupboard in the bathroom that I said I wanted to make better use of
It makes sense for us to keep the cleaning supplies in this cupboard as in our last house we kept them in the kitchen but we don't have cabinet space for them here. They were at the back in his picture in carrier bags, behind the ironing board and mop. I originally then put it all into 2 plastic boxes and stacked them at the back in the same place. However as there's a shelf at the back all of the taller stuff like the ironing board had to go at the front, so to get to the cleaning supplies I had to take everything in the front of that picture out of the cupboard, remove the box to get what I wanted out then put it all back in. This was a massive pain in the backside to do just to grab some polish so after having done it a few times I was ready to find somewhere else to keep this stuff. I saw a picture on Pinterest of shoe hangers being cut up and stuck to the inside of bathroom cabinets to store cosmetics, and I came up with this:

I used the second shoe hanger, just hung over the inside of the door with all of the cleaning supplies I would need on a day to day basis in there, so now when one of the cats pukes on the floor I can just grab the carpet cleaner (Always have a good spot cleaner if you have cats, espcially if you rent!). It also means there's a bit more room in this cupboard
So now I can also keep in here the medicine box and the lightbulbs (behind the ironing board) which were in the kitchen before and as we're struggling for space in there a bit it makes sense to move things into here. I want to find a shelving unit that can stand on that shelf at the back, then we can have shelves going further up to maximise the space in this cupboard and move more stuff into here from the kitchen (Placemats, christmas themed tableware) and also the bedroom (blankets and bedding in boxes), as it's the only built in storage we have I want to get as much in here as possible.

That's how we reorganised our storage space with something meant for another job, so always keep in mind you don't have to use something for it's intended purpose for it to be perfect for the job!

Sunday 24 February 2013

Bedroom Organising

Our bedroom is the room most in need of some TLC, so I made some small changes in here recently to make it a bit more livable, we still have loads of stuff we want to do in here and want to replace about 90% of the furniture (seriously Toms wardrobe is going to collapse soon!)
It looked like this when we moved in


These are our old bedside tables which I just put in this corner when we moved in, I'm going to either spruce them up with a coat of paint or some spray paint, or get rid of them, depending on where the rest of the room goes. We can't use them next to the bed as it's placed in front of the fireplace with the wardrobes behind to make the most of the space in the room, and these are too big to fit next to it (Actually for bedside tables they're massive)
 There is so much stuff under the bed as it's our only storage space for larger items
That box by the door is the last box to be unpacked after moving! It contained all my old Avon paperwork, most of which went in the bin as I don't do Avon any more.
After buying 10 plastic storage boxes from Argos (12.99 for 5 with lids) and 2 over door shoe hangers (6.99 each), I was able to reorganise some things and get it looking more like this.
I got my shoes off the floor and into the shoe hanger, and also reorganised the top of Toms wardrobe, swapping some things out of the ottoman in the hallway so it could be moved in here and the bedding taken down and stored in it.
Also it gets these frames off the floor, they're pictures from our first holiday together to the Dominican Republic

The Christmas decorations and lamps that were on the floor here are now under the bed and on top of Toms wardrobe. We do still have 2 armchairs in here in these pictures as I was waiting for Tom to take this back to his dads, we borrowed it while we didn't have a sofa (Thanks Mike!)
This armchair is ours and used to be in our living room but with the new sofa doesn't fit, so in these pictures it's in the bedroom, although it didn't stay here for long.
It also made a massive difference that Tom went and bought us a new paperwork file from Staples, as ours didn't survive the move so in the pictures above there is a massive pile of bills etc on the floor on top of the mangled paperwork box file!
It also meant we have one less thing being kept in the hallway after the ottoman was moved into the bedroom so that looks a bit clearer as well

So that's our small reorganisation just using what we had and some cheap storage solutions, the 2nd over door shoe holder was used elsewhere and those plastic storage boxes have definately been worth it as we've used them all over the house, and at 12.99 for 5 with lids they are the cheapest I've found. Ikea do have cheaper ones but we weren't planning an Ikea trip any time soon and by the time we would have paid for delivery (I don't have a car and even if I did I'm not going to drive all the way to our nearest one in Bristol or Birmingham just for some boxes) they actually got a bit more expensive. There are rumours that there's going to be an Ikea built in Gloucester (in the space opposite Asda by the train station), I was actually far too excited on hearing this, and if the rumours are true our house will be full of lovely Ikea things and I will have no money!

Friday 22 February 2013

Friday Inspiration

I spend a ridiculous amount of time browsing Pinterest and the internet for inpsiration, so I though I'd round up some of the things I spot each week into a post.

This is exactly what I want our office to look like, from here. I also love the bed in the same post, it would go so well with our new wardrobes which I'll share photos of soon, in fact this is pretty much how I want our whole flat to look.
I would love to have a 'reading nook' somewhere in my house, can't you just imagine spending a few hours here? From here
Or I'd love to recreate something like this in our entrance hall, from here
I'm going to make one of these for all my glasses one day - From here 
I love this white and grey bedroom - From here
This quote is so true :) - From here
Have a lovely weekend everyone!

I'll be reorganising the bathroom and trying to clean up our new (New to us they're actually quite old) wardrobes a little.

xxx