Hopefully this makes a little bit more sense of the floor plan changes I mentioned in my House Project List post.

The previous owners actually used the conservatory as a dining room and had a casual seating area with a sofa and TV in the dining area. I guess it worked well for how they lived but it doesn’t really make sense for me. The conservatory is quite large so, as I talked about previously, the plan is to use that as a more informal area for relaxing and watching TV and then keeping the front living room as a more quite space for reading, listening to music, playing the piano etc, etc.

As you can see I’m planning three main changes, the first being to take out a large built in cupboard in the study that currently houses the washing machine and dryer and add in a wall to divide this room in two, also removing and opening up a doorway. The current layout really limits how you can use this room as you basically have to leave a “corridor” between the door from the hallway to the door leading to the downstairs loo and kitchen. This means that loads of space is wasted in this room so the plan is to create two rooms from this; a small laundry, pantry, utility room at the back and a study at the front.

The second change is to add in a partial wall / divider in the current kitchen and dining area. I like open plan living but I’d just prefer a little bit more of a distinction between the two spaces and hopefully this will achieve that. Doing this does require taking out a pantry style, full-length kitchen cabinet but this doesn’t worry me as the kitchen is a really good size with lots of storage so I’d rather sacrifice a cabinet and be able to delineate the space more clearly.

The final change is to take down part of the wall between the living room and what will be the dining room. I plan on adding in a wall of bookshelves on the living room side along with some kind of sliding / pocket door so that the living room can be closed off from the rest of the house (all part of my plan to have a nice, quite space in the house).

Work is actually underway as I type this which is super exciting! Once the floor plan changes have been completed I can really crack on with all the other updates I want to do.

One of my NotAResolution Resolutions for this year was to make some real progress with house updates, decorating and DIY. I’m a firm believer in that theory that your surroundings are really important to your mood and general well being so living somewhere that has about fifteen projects on the go isn’t really ideal.

Hopefully a proper “to do” list will shame me into getting my ass into gear…

Dressing Room
Firstly, a dressing room update is WAY overdue as it’s basically finished now. In fact, it’s been so close to being finished for so long that I’ve had time to move all my clothes and beauty bits and bobs in and basically trash the joint! Step one is definitely to have a good tidy up and get everything neatly back in it’s place. But, the room is fabulous and it’s super functional so I just need to finish off these last few jobs

• Organise make up storage
• Buy / make blind for window
• Attach skirting boards
• Buy a full length mirror
• Organise jewellery storage

Downstairs Floor Plan Changes
This is probably a separate post in itself but, in short, walls need to come down that exist and walls need to be created that don’t. Obviously this isn’t something I’d be doing myself because I’m a huge fan of your home not falling down around you so this will be left to the pro’s! #loadbearingwallsFTW

Utility Room
So… this room doesn’t actually exist but will be created when one of those walls that need creating, that I mentioned above, are built. One long, awkward, weird space is going to be divided in two to create a utility room accessed from the kitchen and a study accessed from the front hall. Can we just have the list for this room as:

• Every.Single. Thing (AKA make something exist that doesn’t currently exist)

Bedroom
Thinking about everything that needs doing in the bedroom kind of makes me want to cry! I’ll do a full post including some before pictures but in an over-enthusiastic just-moved-in act of craziness every single part of this rooms was ripped out (flooring, wardrobes, light fittings, doors. Everything.) The “To Do” list looks like this:

• Electrician to add new light fitting and sockets
• New built in wardrobes
• Lay new flooring
• Paint walls
• New coving and skirting boards (or crown molding and baseboards for any American’s out there!)
• New bed and mattress
• Freshen up existing built in storage cupboard (paint, storage solutions etc)
• Sliding door to ensuite
• Ikea hack bedside table
• Ikea hack chest of drawers
• Decorate (blinds / curtains, lights, artwork, rug etc)

Dining Room
Again, this is dependent on the walls being built / knocked down happening before any other progress can happen but once that does, it’ll be on to:

• New flooring
• Paint
• New coving and skirting boards
• DIY fauxdenza
• Buy dining table and chairs
• Decorate (rug, artwork etc)

Conservatory / Living Room
Yeah, I REALLY should have done a floor plan post before I tried to make this list because it would really help make sense of all this! Essentially, the house has a living room at the front and a really large conservatory at the back so the plan is for the conservatory, which is open plan to the kitchen and dining room, to be a kind of “casual” living room for watching TV and general lazing around and the living room at the front of the house will be a quieter space for reading books / listening to music / sitting in front of a roaring fire in winter (or, as we call it in the UK, ten months of the year…)

The conservatory living room needs a LOT of work though. Some has been started but the full list of jobs that need doing are:

• Taking up existing tiles
• New flooring
• Paint walls
• Assemble corner sofa (with a bit of an Ikea hack on the legs)
• Re-finish architects chest as a coffee table
• Build new media storage unit for TV etc
• Build behind the sofa table
• Decorate (cushions, art, rug etc)

And a couple of more long term things that will need to wait a while as they’ll be really expensive:

• New roof
• New windows
• New blinds for windows

Reading this back, this is starting to feel somewhat over-ambitious! Time to go get my DIY on…