Ugh. January. I sometimes feel like I may be the only person who wishes that you didn’t get paid a week or so earlier in December, but I’m pretty sure most people understand that “it’s been five and a half weeks, hurry up and get here already” feeling when it comes to January’s pay day.
Here are the items making their way onto my “Must Purchase” list for the end of the month…
Make Up For Ever Step 1 Skin Equalizer Mattifying Primer, £13 here
I actually don’t know why I haven’t got around to buying this yet. It’s been on my list of things to try for months now. My obsession with all things mattifying is a pretty serious one so I have high hopes for this.
M.A.C Eyeshadow Pro Palette Refill Pans in Brun and Wedge, £10 each here
These two have been on my list for a while now, plus it’ll complete my Pro Palette so… Obviously an essential purchase 😉
Top Ford Lips & Boys Lipsticks, £27 each here
Obviously I’m not going to buy all fifty of these lipsticks because that would be ridiculous. Or would it…?
There are, however, so many gorgeous shades that narrowing down which to get is tricky. On the list of potentials are Giocomo, Drake, Alejandro, Collin, Malik, Egon, Luciano, Jake, Henry and Roberto. I think somebody needs to stage an intervention.
Becca Jaclyn Hill Shimmering Skin Perfector in Champagne Pop, £32 here
Because it is clearly highlighting perfection and I need it!
NIOD Photography Fluid, £20 here
Let’s just acknowledge that I have no self control and am a sucker for a good blogger recommended product. But when people are claiming it’s like an Instagram filter for your face then what’s a girl to do?!
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.
At the start of the year a friend of mine posted on Facebook about a challenge that she was setting herself for 2016; ‘Just Read Another Book’.
Challenge Rules
Read one new book every fortnight for the year. Completing at least 26 new books by 31st December 2016.
Watch one new film each week for the year, totalling 52 new watched films by 31st December 2016.
I absolutely loved the idea of the challenge – I’ve often thought that I really should make time to watch all these films that are winning Oscars and I’ve lost count of the number of books I’ve bought but haven’t got round to reading yet (the pile is probably reaching crush injury levels now…)
I’ve always considered myself a prolific reader but, as I get older, I’ve definitely fallen into the habit of only finding time to read before bed and therefore just picking up an old favourite that has probably been read twenty times before. The same is true for watching films – when I actually have the time to watch a film I’m usually so tired that I end up avoiding anything new that requires even a little bit of concentration. So, in an attempt, to combat this and actually make time for myself and reading I’m going to jump on the bandwagon and attempt to complete this myself.
I’m not planning on blogging every week about this but I will probably try to do a monthly update post. Mainly because I think keeping a track of what I’m reading / watching will help keep me focused on completing the challenge.
Here goes…
You can take a look at my completed books and films here.
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)
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…
bobo & mimi 