Dysfunctional Planner

What does your ideal home look like?

We are creating our ideal home. The build may be at a standstill but the interiors are not. I have shared some on my mood boards before but I happy to share them again.

A little retrospect for those who are new to my blog, we had a lovely little perfect house about a 30 minute walk from where we live now. We loved it. Didn’t really think about moving. Then unfortunately Gavin’s Grandfather died and we had the opportunity to buy it. It is a bigger house, in a nicer area ( we loved where we lived) with lots of gardens and more land than we even considered owning. It needs and needed a lot of work.

So we know this is our forever home. A London 1930s terrace may not be everyone’s dream home but we love it. It’s got good bones. Lots of memories.

We haven’t had a great start in this home. We had a falling out, Gavin got cancer ( he is doing fine now) and now our builder has run off without finishing the job and with most of our money. But we still love it here. We still want to make our life here.

So what does our ideal home look like. Well first it’s safe and water tight. We had the electrics done some were as old as the house. We had the majority of our items put in storage. the downstairs is no where near completion but the upstairs is.

Every room is plastered and painted. Just two need some touch up. The coving is due to go in week and carpets need to be ordered and upstairs will be done. I bought a 1930s cast iron fireplace to give the room some more character and its suits the room.

The boiler needs replacing and moving and it’s going in the attic so it doesn’t take up any kitchen room.

We plan to keep the 40year old carpet, whip it and turn it into to a stair runner. We have also kept the long velvet yellow curtain and have the original mirror and table that have been in the house since it was first lived in. the floors downstairs are all parquet so we plan on getting that restored to its former glory. It’s pitch pine but we prefer the colour it is now so we will get it stained darker.

Our living room will be similar but just Hague blue and white instead of railings.

Our sitting room will be our haven. We have already installed a log burner to keep us warm and the 80s faux sandstone monstrosity has gone. We really do love this carpet and again we will have it whipped into a large rung to keep it nice and cosy. We plan on putting French doors in to separate the kitchen dining from the sitting room.

The dining room extension havent been planned as such but I have a definite plan for the kitchen.

Is dove grey my first choice for a kitchen? Absolutely not but it will be broken up by the warm terracotta tiles, original to the house. These incredible 1930 Spanish tiles on the backsplash and hints of green and red throughout. The island will be painted green and the whole space will have clean white walls filled with art and furniture.

Our forever home isn’t the grandest, it isn’t the smallest either. We are very fortunate to own such a beautiful home. Our ideal may not match yours but I have a vision. Me and my family, working and living here. Family meals, Christmas, Easter, solstice. Decorating, cooking, laughing and sharing. A house full of colour and meaningful things. I don’t tend to trend buy for my house but things that I love always come back in fashion.

Our home also includes the garden but I think I will leave that for another day.

We are creating this home for us.