If we owned our flat

I kind of forgot about these! Last one was in November.

Anyway, I still have things I'd do if this flat was ours. Number one at the moment would be ventilation. We are getting mould again, I wrote this post in March last year when we had a small amount and this year it has come back with a vengeance despite us running the dehumidifier and opening the window whenever we can. Condensation damp mostly, as there isn't any ventilation other than the extractor in the bathroom.

This was what it was like a month or so ago (sometime in January), I cleaned it all off the walls and off our furniture and ottoman from Toms wardrobe.

That is meant to be dark brown. Nice.

It is coming up again already though, and the bedroom gets very damp. We had our inspection last weekend and Landlord has some people coming out to look into ventilation this week. Actually he was very good about it, no blaming us for it or trying to get out of it (I was ready to make my case but he just said he'd sort it) which can be the case with damp and landlords...not all of course but I've had issues in the past and have heard similar form other tenants. Things like them saying it's not a problem and we should just live with it or clean the walls more often, or it's our fault for not opening windows (Although we do I'm obsessed with fresh air) or there's nothing they can do. Most of them are bull really, unless you never open the windows and dry washing inside all the time it is unlikely to be your fault and the ventilation needs to be looked at or some damp proofing needs to be done.

In my opinion we need a new window, as the current set up of old window then secondary glazing isn't keeping out the cold and it's always covered in condensation. A modern double gazed window with ventilation would be better. Also an extractor in the kitchen would help to keep the moisture at bay as when we are cooking it gets very moist in here, even with windows open. Apparently the people coming are looking at some ventilation system that goes in the wall, it lets air out and heats it on the way back in so it will help keep the bedroom warmer too. Whatever it is as long as it gets rid of this I'm happy!

This was really hard to get in a photo but you might be able to see in one of these, most of the bad stuff was on the wall with the window but it went onto the other walls in a fine mist.

Apologies for the rubbish photos I was too busy moving furniture out, scrubbing with bleach and trying not to breath in too many mould spores to really sort out lighting and photo quality. Hopefully this will be sorted before next winter (It's better in the summer as we leave the windows open constantly and we dry all our washing outside and there is less damp in the air generally) and I'll just have to clean it one more time...

Picture Problem Solving

You may remember that we hung some photos on the chimney breast in the living room, and attempted the bedroom.

However the wall appears to be made of titanium, ok probably not but something really solid. In our old house I would have just got the drill out and hung some more heavy duty screws but Landlord was really specific that it must only be small picture hooks (the piddly little ones that come with teeny tiny nails). These had just about worked in the living room, although I would personally not use them again as they were massively fiddly and damaged the wall more than just using screws or nails in my opinion.

Anyway, the walls then stayed like this in the bedroom for a while (months) while I nagged Tom to fill and paint it. Then I did it myself and he got the paint from his dad. Nowhere does tester pots of decorators white, you have to buy a whole bucket of it, which is not what we wanted to do for this tiny amount of painting so we went to borrow a cup of paint.

All remedied and tidy, but still no pictures. Then I saw this on pinterest.

Then I noticed that our wardrobes are the same height...so I went and bought a curtain pole and laid it across the wardrobes.

It sat like empty for a while until I went and got some picture rail hooks. On a side note how awesome would a picture rail be in a rented place?

Now it looks like this!

The small canvases are from Asda a few years ago, they came as a 3 with the 'home sweet home' canvas which is currently on the dining table. I'm debating taking them out as the uneven number looks a bit weird and they fall off occasionally...I might see how it goes but I'm sure the pictures will change around a lot on here anyway!

I won the other 3 prints a while back and they've been floating around the flat looking for a home. I originally wanted to hang this canvas there but it's too big and made the rail sag in the middle, so I stuck to smaller lighter things. The love canvas was a Christmas present from Toms mum it is made up of photos of us.

 The pole came with 3 brackets for hanging, and I had a bit of a brainwave...

 Finally somewhere to put the dressing gowns! They've just been hanging about for ages, the brackets are just tucked under the ottomans.

So far so good except for a few incidents of them falling off when we slam the wardrobe door too hard or if we catch the pole when getting our dressing gowns out, but these have gotten less now we have got used to it being there.

I like that this is easily interchangeable and we can add to it as we go, I'd like to maybe create some hanging flowers or lights but for now it's just nice to have something in here! I'd really like it to look a bit more dramatic like the inspiration pic, so I'm on the look out for some straps or hanging implements of some sort...

Before the big declutter

I'll post our list for the big declutter on Wednesday, so if you're playing along at home get ready to get rid! See last weeks post here on the method.

I thought I'd share some before photos today because A.the whole flat is clean after a bank holiday housework blitz and B. I'm hoping it will look a bit different in a few weeks!

The Kitchen - Problem areas:
Top of the microwave
Countertops
Food cupboard

The thing on top of the hob is the oven shelves soaking in the overnight oven cleaner

The Living Room - Problem Areas:
Box under coffee table
Corners by the bookshelves

The dining room/hallway (not really sure what to call his room now it's no longer the 'office') - Problem Areas:
Shelves under the turtle tank

The Bathroom - Problem Areas:
Cosmetics
Built in cupboard

The Hallway - Problem Areas
Bookshelves
Cupboard
Music Equipment
Shoes
Computer Equipment
Chairs (we have 4 dining chairs and an armchair in here and never sit on any of them!)

This box is also still here, Tom needs to sort it out or it will just be labelled 'Sell' and become the start of the car boot pile...

The Bedroom - Problem Areas:
Under the bed
Ottomans

The bag on the bed is full of clothes that were on ebay and ended yesterday and I'm either sending off or if they didn't sell getting rid of elsewhere

So that's our flat as of yesterday, pretty clean and tidy but cluttered in some areas. I can't wait to get rid of some things and make some room!

Bedroom Brainstorming

The bedroom is the room that I most dislike in our flat, the new wardrobes help but the rest of the furniture is so mismatched as it just always looks such a mess as nothing has a home and just seems to be out all the time.

exhibit A

The trunk just collects junk, we got new pillows and want to keep the old ones as spares but they were waiting for us to find somewhere for them. We got memory foam pillows when we got the new mattress and we love the mattress but the pillows are very hard and we never really got used to it. So we got the 'super bounce' overstuffed pillows from silent night and love them!

This side of the room is also really cluttered and my hair products, makeup and jewellery seems to have spread over 2 areas although I don't actually have that much!

We also have to leave the drawers out from the wall a little so we can get to the window to open and close it, so it just kind of floats in the middle of the space

 It's full of clothes, tops in the middle drawer and dresses in the bottom

However I also have dresses in my wardrobe, which is looking a little crowded, but I thought I could maybe get all my dresses together in the wardrobe.

 I had a brutal clothes cull, the pile is for Ebay, one bin liner for the bin and the other for charity

I bought a few vacuum bags from the pound shop a while ago, so also vaccum packed a few things (like winter clothes and holiday stuff) and slid it under the wardrobe

I then swapped the drawers and chest around, much better! I can step on the trunk to open the window so it can go right up against the wall. This was actually all I set out to do that day and it kind of spiralled into a complete reorganisation of all my stuff!

It's nicer to have less furniture going on in this corner, it looked a bit crowded with all the drawers.
I've got all my clothes together on one side of the room as well as all my hair stuff and makeup which is nice.

Although my shoes, bags and belts are still in the trunk

I managed to get all of my makeup jewellery and hair stuff together here after a bit of a throw out, I'm not a big makeup wearer yet still had tons of it! So now all I have is makeup in the bottom drawer of the wicker drawers, hair stuff in the top, my glasses are in the silver bucket with my hairbrush. Underneath are my jewellery boxes and larger hair stuff like cans of hairspray, my hair dryer etc.
 I also cleared the top of these drawers so Tom can have a bit of room for his stuff

And look, empty drawers! I'm not going to fill them for the sake of it and keeping them for if we need space, the top one is Toms man drawer, and the second one has all my glasses cases and a few random things in. I managed to get all my underwear and socks and tights which were in here into the chest of drawers in place of the dresses (which I did manage to get into the wardrobe) so all my stuff is together in one place.

It looks so much clearer and cleaner in here now, the mismatched furniture is still a slight issue but we will eventually get a new bed and I will do something with those drawers above I just need to figure out what. I've debated painting them, covering them, just getting rid of them (reluctant to do as we struggle for storage in some areas), moving them to another room...but nothing has really clicked or inspired me yet.

Progress

We've been living in our flat 6 months now, so I thought it's a good time to look back and see what progress we've made (and what we still have left to do...which is plenty!)

Let's start with the kitchen, probably the room that's least changed

We've decluttered and added in some storage jars and storage solutions, also we've added in some finishing touches like the 'keep calm' sign. Still left to do in here are new mugs (thinking those DIY sharpie decorated ones that are all over Pinterest), new bread bin and mug tree, new canisters for tea coffee and sugar (thinking silver metallic) new recycling bin, maybe a rug or at least a doormat, new fruit bowl and possibly a window treatment. Also we still need to declutter some problem area like the top of the microwave.

You can see larger photos and more detail on the changes in the kitchen here, here and here.

Onto the living room

We got the new bookshelves and I changed the basket under the table for a larger one with a lid (It came with the ottomans from the bedroom), we also added in my DIY runner. Other than that the changes have been minor rearrangements of frames and CDs etc, I want to eventually get an ottoman or trunk to use as a coffee table, change the TV unit, add some art/photo frames on the fireplace (where we have been told we can put picture hooks, yay!), add more pillows to the sofa, maybe make a faux roman blind for the window (to go over the existing boring one) and generally add in a bit of colour as the room is a bit bland! Possibly thinking yellow to go with the Fender...

You can see more on the living room here and more on the DIY runner here.

The into the Office

We have some art on the tank and a mat under the cat litter tray, but the desk is now even more of a mess as we have 2 PC screens at the moment (anyone want to buy one?!). We are looking at the whole computer situation, as I have my new netbook (which came with one of those screens) so very rarely use the desktop, Tom uses it sometimes but if we had a laptop that did iTunes and Tom could play games on we could get rid the desktop, freeing up some space. This all costs money though so will be something we sort out gradually. We also want to get a new desk and new desk chair, and possibly a rug under the desk. The turtle tank will also need replacing at some point (see this post on the leak we had the other week!) but that's also something quite expensive that we will need to save up for.

You can see more on the office here and here

Then into the bathroom

This room, like the kitchen, hasn't really changed a great deal it has mostly just been decluttered and I'm trying to not buy more than one bottle of something at a time (you know when your shampoo is on offer so you buy 5 bottles...yeah I'm trying not to do that). I want to get some more art or something in here as it's a bit bland, I'm thinking on the back of the toilet as I like the lilies there in this post. Also I think we need a new bath mat as our has goe a bit off white, new towels probably soonish as well as I bought really cheap ones and they're starting to go a bit off colour (they also looked great in our last bathroom but I'd prefer black or white ones here).

You can read more on the bathroom here and here

The bedroom, it was gross before!

We've gotten rid of the 2 armchairs that were in there, reorganised my shoes, moved the trunk in from the hallway, got new wardrobes, got ottomans for storage on top of the wardrobes, rationalised the stuff under the bed and moved a lot of it out to the wardrobe in the hallway, brought the canvas in from the office, got new paperwork storage and generally tidied up! To be honest it still has a long way to go, I want to get a new bed, get bedside tables, rearrange the furniture so the chest of drawers isn't in front of the window (makes it hard to open the window), add some art or photos to the chimney breast (again this is where we've been told we can put picture hooks) get new bedding and a mirror, get some bedside lamps and bring a bit of a cohesive colour scheme in (so far we have about 10 different wood tones and 5 different textiles in here and it looks a bit crazy). It all seems to hinge on the new bed I so once we have that we can do the rest.

You can see more on the bedroom here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Then onto the entrance hall way, probably the most transformed room so far!

I reorganised in here a few times before getting our lovely big wardrobe to put all our junk in, it's a room that isn't really used by us except to walk through when we come in and out of the flat and for storage, so really I want to give this space a use other than drying clothes. As we don't spend any time in here more often than not it's full of clothes airers with washing drying on them, so you come in the door and it looks like this

Not exactly a warm welcome. So our aim in here is to maximise space so we could actually spend time in here, I'm thinking a reading nook as all the bookshelves are in here.

You can see more on the entrance hall and how we got to this point here, here and here

Onto the outside space, really we have just planted some things and are waiting to see how they do but it looks better already in the back garden

We're just waiting for seeds to grow and plants to fill in, then we might get a few more pots and some pretty garden things but we will build it up over time. There's not been any change in the front of the flat, not a lot we can change really!

You can see more on the garden here, and here.

There's the last 6 months of projects and changes, it's nice to look back and what you've achieved sometimes and see how much progress you've made even though there is plenty left to do!