6 months in - what do we love?

Another kind of recap post, on what we love in our new home.

If you look back to our first few posts, you can see we were given our notice at our last place. Although it was not the ideal home for us and I was starting to get ideas about moving (we move on average every 2 years and had been there nearly that long...), but even so moving was not our decision. Looking back though I am so much happier here than I was last year, I will share a history of each place we've rented and it might get ugly but I think it's important to lay out why I think I'm informed on most problems you could encounter being a tenant!

Any way back to the point, firstly what do I love about our flat?

1. The location. I don't have my own car because I don't need one. I can walk to work and get the bus to my other work (I'm split between 2 hospitals). We're near enough to the town that we can walk to the town centre and other areas with shops, bars, restaurants etc. However we aren't actually in town so it's quiet and there is parking etc.
2. The size, we have the 2 hallway/extra rooms which are extra to what you usually get in a one bedroom. The rest of the rooms are also really well proportioned, we seem to have the perfect amount of space and I can clean over the whole place in a couple of hours. Plus it doesn't cost a fortune as it is still really a one bedroom.
3. The garden, love having some outdoor space, it's a manageable size and no lawn to mow!
4. The landlords, we were concerned that as they live above they might be overly 'involved' but we have only seen them a handful of times, although they have responded to any queries or requests really quickly and reasonably. 
5. It's painted white, not magnolia. I hate magnolia, why does every landlord want to paint everything magnolia?! I love the white walls as we really can go with any colour scheme for accessories and furniture in any room.
6. The quality, the place was freshly decorated and carpeted before we moved in and is really well done.  The light fixtures are all nice and the blinds and curtains are all nice quality. 
7. Money saving, while the flat is £50 per month more than our last place in rent, we have a freeview aerial here so don't pay for cable, the heating is all new and efficient and the place is smaller and generally more modern than our last house (despite being over 100 years older than it) so over the long term should be cheaper to run.
8. The area, Cheltenham in general is a nice place to live in our experience. There is plenty to do and loads of festivals on through the year. There are plenty of nice restaurants and we feel like we have more of a lifestyle here, we sometimes feel a bit common for the area haha (seriously it's a bit posh).
9. It's old, I prefer old buildings to new and I like the wonky walls, sash windows and period details.
10. Maintenance, while the place is pretty low maintenance we also have space and scope to make it our own (obviously in a limited kind of way), but this doesn't over extend into fixing the place up and spending our own time and money on someone else's property. It's in that sweet spot you want as a tenant that you can hang pictures etc but the place doesn't need too much work.

That's the 10 things I love about our new home (at some point I'll also have to stop calling it 'new'), I'll do a post on what we miss or wish we had and what we can do to solve these (very small) issues.

How am I doing?

Firstly, thanks for reading over the last few months, it really been great to have a creative outlet and a little corner of the internet to whitter on about our flat, home décor and renting. I'm amazed some days to look at the stats and see that people are actually reading!

After the last post on the progress we've made over the last 6 months with the flat and what I still want to do, I thought I'd also ask you guys what you want to see more of here on the blog. I'm pretty new to this so would love to hear how you think I'm doing.

A few things I've been wondering...

1. I try to post every other day, and to be honest with working full time I'm unlikely to be able to write a post every day all the time but I could sometimes post more often, would you like to see more posts? Or is the current amount enough?
2. At the moment I have a few regular posts like the Friday Inspiration and Payday Wish List series, are there any other regular posts you'd like to see? Like maybe a Q&A/discussion style post on renting or anything you want to send me questions on (obviously nice questions no rude topics my parents read this!)
3. Other than those few regular posts I really just update with any projects I have going on, mostly small stuff (as we rent I'm unlikely to renovate the kitchen or knock down any walls...yet haha), but is there anything you want to see less of/more of? I have a lot of non decorating related posts to write on our experiences as tenants in the past and on things like renting with pets...

That's all the things I've been wondering, really just feel free to comment, email, facebook, or however else you want to get in touch any time with a question, comment or feedback (Or just to say hi, I'd love to know who's reading)

xxx

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!