Our living room : Before & After

A month has gone by since we moved back into the house and I've been teasing you with talk of sharing internal photos... We still have a half varnished staircase, one bare plaster wall and a DIY list as long as my arm, but the sitting room is almost finished and I figured that almost is probably good enough, so I could show you one room at least...

This is the part of the old house that has seen the biggest change. Earlier this year it was made up of two south facing room which we knocked it into one.  Though the main bedroom was a good size it was right next to the front door and the sitting room though in a good location was tiny.

The rooms had actually switched purposes at some point in the house's history when the kitchen was built on the back, which explains an awful lot!

This is what it looked like in March when we had the roof off. It gives you a good idea of the layout...

Here's the view from the front of the house. In the first photo I am standing with my back to the bedroom door, in the second the door is no longer there. We replaced the old fixed pane windows on the left with bifold doors, but the opening is the same...

The old and new sitting room taken from the doorway... In these pictures the outside door and internal paned glass doors haven't changed, but the wall on the left has been removed.

And the view from the kitchen through the internal doors. The sash window at the end is entirely new. The bedroom had previously had a bay window which was off-centre (due to the way the house had been extended)

 

And a view down the room taken through the new sash window. Our rather collosal collection of books which we've carted round the world with us meant that we needed to have some decent storage. After considering a few options for bookcases, we eventually settled on reusing the one we had used as a room divider in the cabin. It's an Ikea Expedit which we bought second hand from eBay a few years ago.

The coffee table (which is enormous) was also an eBay purchase. The corner sofa was second hand from my parents and is 10 years-old, not that you'd know it and the red sofa you can see through the doors in the kitchen is one I bought in the Ikea bargain basement 15 years ago. We bought a new cover for it from Bemz which has completely rejuvinated it!

Next week we are starting the big final push to get everything sorted before our housewarming on 23rd. (I don't know about you, but I work best to deadlines!) Beyond the obvious (you may have noticed the lack of curtains and the unhung pictures) we are still undecided about how we are going to use a couple of rooms in the house. We have a spare room downstairs for guests, but also a spare bedroom upstairs. 

We debated for a while turning it into a second guest room and even went as far as looking at some beds to buy, but decided in the end that we didn't want to tie it up as a spare room when it would probably only get used twice a year. I think this has left us with a playroom downstairs and a study upstairs, but as we work our way down the to-do list I'm sure things will become more apparent!