A greyish blue day

As I hinted the other day, I'd started a new project whilst Michael was away. When we moved into our flat, my dad very kindly gave us a chest of drawers. It fitted into our built in wardrobe, had enough storage for all our stuff and was generally perfect. Except it was lilac... Silly Stacey forgot to take the before picture pre-first-coat-of-paint, so this sorry excuse will have to do. 

As you can see it had been a wonderful shade of purple.. And also lime green at some point.. And a lovely neon pink too. But now, instead Of all of those wonderful colours, it's these...  

I found inspiration from Pinterest (common theme of the blog, all hale Pinterest) and after Michael and I had decided an olive green/blue colour scheme for the bedroom, I remembered that I had the paint leftover from my room project to hand. 

I love the finished piece and it feels good to have something that we've made our own, it our own home :) listen to me.. What a sap. 

Mirror

Michael and I are on the hunt for a mirror. One with a gold frame, perhaps with an old fashioned pattern, and huge.

We found these in matalans recently, and even though they aren't gold (I can paint it easily enough) their size just doesnt suit either. 

So the hunt continues; charity shops, eBay, Gumtree and any shops possible... It'll be very satisfactory to find one day I reckon :)

Our Flat: Empty

I wanted to make sure I could do a flat tour, with the bare bones of the place, and then do another tour to show you what we'd managed to do with the place :) But another thing we did whilst waiting for Michael's parents to arrive on move in day, was sort the stuff we'd brought up ourselves... so there are a few bits and bobs here and there.

 

Coat/shoe cupboard

Airing Cupboard

Ugly offensive fireplace

So the basics are very nice, clean and new; Michael's mum thought it was quite homely already, but we are keen to make a mark on the place and create a place that's ours. We have some big (okay, not that big) plans and clear visions for rooms, so watch this space! 

The move, part one

I have so much stuff. This is what the van took from my house- 

 

This is what my car had to take-

This is what the van looked like in the end

We drove to michaels camp the night before so we didn't have a ridiculous wake up call, and then signed for the flat first thing. Whilst waiting for the cavalry to arrive, we tried out the breakfasts at a local pub (not the nicest in all honesty). And in Michael's haste- his tea was ruined. 

We then went on a huge food shop to build our store cupboards up (I swear it's healthier than it looks haha) 

We unpacked for the rest of the day, and made sure things found a home (if not their forever home) and then relaxed with our first meal - spinach and ricotta tortellini with cheese sauce and fine beans. You'd better believe Michael complained about no meat even though he'd had a full English that morning! 

The Pre-Move

 

There has been a lot going on over here - constant packing, list writing, sorting and sourcing. These are some snippets of the journey we're currently taking! 

 

 

Relocation, Relocation, Relocation

No.. I'm not doing some weird kind of review of the TV program, Michael and I are moving! Here starts a long story with lots of components:
-After our short trip to Prague and our long journey home, I had a job interview in a county near to Michael's army base. I think it was two full weeks or close to two weeks later, they called and offered me the job stating there was a delay because they didn't know which team to put me in.
- The job I applied for is in one area, whilst Michael's is another, so we are meeting it the middle and commuting each day. We decided, when I applied for the job, that it was a step we were ready to take together, but that we would leave it up to fate - if this is the job I got, when I'd applied for a few, then it was meant to be. And it's all worked out, so it was clearly the right choice!
-Flat hunting and contract waiting later, we viewed a flat and pretty much fell in love. We had to wait for a week or two again for the contract, but the new council's HR department are super lovely and I'm so appreciative of this.
-Crazy times sourcing and looking for furniture. (charity shops, of course!)
-Contract came, contract was signed, contract was sent.
-Estate agents was contacted and the flat we loved was ours! Well... credit and reference checks later (long, so long), we found out Friday that the flat is ours!

Pinterest has been an absolute God send for all of this, check out my relocating board here. It's a place I like to keep picture of my absolute goal, so I can keep them at the forefront of my mind and don't end up buying crap.

The Flat:
We have a top floor unfurnished flat that has two bedrooms (aka a bedroom and a study, Michael gets the garage!), a kitchen, bathroom, lounge, airing cupboard and coat/shoe room, garage. oh and a little patch of grass we have to take care of. The floors are mostly laminate, bar both bedrooms which are carpeted.

Finding Furniture:
This makes me laugh, because Michael kept going to family gatherings and texting me like 'I've got us a bed, I've got a mattress, do we need a nest of tables?' We are very grateful to both families pulling together to help us with all of this - furniture is expensive stuff! We thought we would just get items to begin with; this place is not our home, I don't need my forever pieces, it doesn't have to be perfect, it can be just so - we'll replace it when the time comes. The kitchen is already all sorted - I have tonnes of stuff from Uni, and luckily white goods are already in the property. Currently we've managed to nab - bed frame, mattress, dining table, bed side cabinets, nest of tables. I already have a beautiful vintage side board that will be used as the TV stand (and storage!), and Michael's parents have bought us a three seater sofa and an arm chair. Wardrobes are already built in, so our current needs are;

• Desk
• shelves for study
• rug
• drawers for bathroom

Bathroom Drawers/Storage

The bathroom is mostly set, there's a medicine cabinet etc but no shelves in the shower or place to store toiletries, hence the need for something like this -  

                                              Ikea                                                    Argos                     

The lounge

The floor is yellowy wood laminate. I love grey so the sofa and arm chairs are grey. To set the room off I know I need a colour scheme, as grey is just the base, and I'm currently crushing on these colour variations. The place has blinds up and I'm not sure if there even are curtain poles in the property, but that's something I  might need to think about too 

 

(already purchased - Tesco)

 

Pinks/Greens - but always dusky

 

Just the shade of green on the right - not the shelving, that's not my kinda thing. 

Ikea - I need this in my life - imagine that over the sofa. 

Lounge tables 

The Study

My initial thought was wooden - it's always wooden, but dark wood. Then I thought about having a big steel workbench of a desk and the ideas started flowing. I would like a metal desk, and also some metal shelving - for books, but also creeping/hanging plants - that mix of silver and green is just going to be perfect.

 

 

Other

These look like handy little contraptions 

hehe, so appropriate

I think that's it for now, it's so nice to have them all down in one place so expect another installment. And then of course a house tour! All links are on my pinterest, either on the 'relocating' board, or the 'for the home' (for the lounge colour schemes).