Hello my lovely readers, I trust that your weekend was full of sunshine and happy events!
As you know it is Other People's Houses month here on the old blog, and I figured it was about time that you saw into my little home - so Welcome!!
My plan was to do a video tour around the house, but that was a big fail - I managed to film the introduction (basically me rambling for about 10 minutes about utter crap) but then didn't actually film anything else. So I took some photos instead. These are panorama style photos, so just clicky-click on them to make them all bigger and stuff!
The whole point of other people's houses month is to try and get away from that bare-white-walls, -wood-floor-area-rug out-of-an-ikea-catalogue sort of house tour you see all over the interwebs (especially on Pinterest), and to show that not everyone has a perfectly perfect house. As you will see...
So, this is the front of my house. I have two front doors, aren't I special? Please excuse the dead hanging basket by the door. And the peeling paint. No, no - no need to take your shoes off, just come on in.
Ah, here you are! This is the hall, complete with a pile of coats, a walking stick on the wall, and bookcase number one (yes there will be plenty more bookcases on this tour!) - See that map up there on the right? Well, that's just the start of Martin's map wall - all the way up the stairs are framed pictures of maps - old and new, real places and not-so-real. That's the kitchen through that door, but if you just turn to your left...
It's the sitting room! Or the lounge. Or living room. Whatever you want to call it. This is where I do computer-y things, where we watch TV, play on the X-Box, eat our tea, entertain Zoe and chill. The plants are mostly Martin's as I tend to kill them. The pink thing on the wall is my happy birthday banner (yeah, I'm not taking it down, like, ever!). This is the room fairly tidy, there's usually Zoe's toys strewn across the room, shredded wheats on the floor, and a cat somewhere snoring loudly. Bookcase number two (the bureau) houses cook books, craft books and gardening books. And loads of crap in the drawers.
Follow me out the french doors...
And welcome to our garden! This is Martin's domain, he spends ages pottering around out here (mostly looking confused). It would be great to have a bit of grass, but once we fix that wall (yeah, it's falling down), we might get a bit of lawn. The big tree in the middle is a greengage (plum) tree, and there are LOADS this year, so there will be plum jam and plum crumble all summer hopefully.
Back inside now...
Ah, our kitchen. I really hate our kitchen. It's dark, I really don't like the green sink and tiles, there's a mouldy patch where the bath leaked through the ceiling and down the wall.. gah!! I like the floor though. And I'm sure that once the walls are painted and tiles are replaced with nice shiny white ones it will look loads better. The utility room is through that door with the freezer, washing machine and tumble dryer. Exciting stuff, yes? (p.s. no books in here)
Let's go upstairs...
Zoe's Room!! Yay! I love this room - I spent hours painting it while I was pregnant - the pattered wallpaper took about four coats to cover up! Yes, that is a mattress on the floor, and yes, I do end up sleeping there most nights. Hmph. That's a gripe for another day. But I love this room - it's so bright and cheery, and is full of toys and books and cute things, like the toadstool money box and
felt mobile. Bookcase number three is there on the right, bookcase number four is at the bottom of the cot - you can just see it. But there are also piles of books by the cot as well, as we have run out of room!
Yeah, I haven't taken photos of the bathroom. It's a bathroom. There's a loo, a sink and a bath. With the panel missing because it leaks. The floor is wood stuff and the ceiling is wood too. Blurgh. Also the tiles have hippos on them. Fun!
So, next room is..
The spare room! Also known as Tony's Room as this is where Martin's friend Tony sleeps when he stays over. Look, there's bookcases five, six and seven, and bookcase eight is just at the far right of the picture. Martin's home brew stuff is in that left corner. This room is fairly plain - just white walls and ceiling. Loads of pictures though. I think Martin is allergic to bare walls as he's always 'banging a nail in' somewhere.
And last stop on the tour is..
Our bedroom. Blah. I am really not happy with this room, as I said on Friday, I want to redecorate in shades of purple, rather than this red patterned stuff we inherited from the previous owners. Yes, I know I've been here since 2006, I am a procrastinator, ok?!?! In this photo you can see the dodgy semi-naked girl, which is covering up a painted-on playboy bunny (I don't know), and you can also see my AWESOME owl lamp! Yay owls! Bookcase number nine is right in front of you too.
Oh, there's the attic room too, which is Ma-Hoo-Sive, but no photos of that because it does seriously look like a bomb went off. Think a jumble sale and a car boot sale had a baby, then the baby threw up. That's our attic right now. One day when it's tidy I will take a photo and show you all the awesomeness.
So, that's my little abode. If/when we decorate anything, I'll blog about it and link back to here so that you can do a little compare.
I hope that you enjoyed your nose around my house. Spot anything dodgy that I didn't put away? Want to tell me that you hate that carpet or think my taste in tartan blankets is awesome? Let me know in the comments :)