FLOOR PLANS AND ALL THE BEFORES

We moved into our new house in September 2013. We were really sad to leave the little rented house we'd called home for 6 years - it was the first place that we lived together and where we bought our 2 babies home to - but also really excited to have more space and the opportunity to create a home that would work for our family. 

Our new house is a 1930's 3 bedroom semi-detatched home. At around 900 sq ft it's nearly double the size of our old house (it was 530 sq ft) - so it feels good to have more space to grow into. 

Right now the layout looks like this:

We'd love to make some changes to the layout some day but we're kind of restricted in how much we could expand this house because:

1. the left hand wall is shared with the house connected to ours
2. the right hand wall only has a narrow alley way (about 3ft wide) before you hit the fence of the next house
3. we have a really big front garden but all of the houses on our street have the same facade that end in line with each other - so if we extended at the front it might mess with the aesthetic of the whole street
4. the back yard is smaller and slopped so if we extend out back we would loose a chunk of our usable space out there

we're lucky that the size of this house definitely feels big enough for our family so it's not a big deal that we can't add much square footage - but we'd love to move the first floor internal doors and walls around one day to create a better flow and rooms that make the most of the space we have. Doing any big building work is way off though so we'll be working with the current layout for at least a couple more years. 

Although our dream house would have probably included a laundry room, a second bathroom, a spacious guest room, a big kitchen and tons of closets our budget would never have stretched that far! But this house is big enough that it won't restrict us - it has enough space that we can have over night guests and host parties - but small enough that it will force us to work out what we really need and how we can live simply. 

I pulled some pictures of the house before we moved in (we've made some changes since these photos were taken - so i'll share more up to date pictures soon) 

Front Garden

The front garden slopes up towards the house - we want to replace the hedge on the left boundary with a fence and increase the parking area - we're thinking of moving the steps up to the house to be more central and add some good looking but low maintenance plants and trees and I'd love to remove the outer door to open the storm porch (like this).

Hall/Entry

Having a designated entry and wide hallway feel like a luxury to us - we're planning on keeping it simple, bright and organised. 

Living - Dining Room

This is our one living space and it's so long and skinny it intimidates me! (It was originally 2 rooms that have been knocked into one by a previous owner). It's very closed off with only one small door that connects it to the hall so we're thinking about knocking some wide doorways to the hall and the kitchen to create a better flow and a more open plan layout. 

Kitchen

We'd love to do a complete reno in here one day and totally change the layout (the wall on the left is the one that we're thinking of knocking through to join this room with the living-dining room) but until then we're planning to do some phase-one updates to help this room function a little better and look a little nicer.

Bathroom

The bathroom functions fine so we'll be doing the phase-one tactic in here too until we can save up for shiny new everything - i'm planning a ton of hex tile and marble one day!

Girls Room

This bedroom is pretty good size but doesn't have any built in storage - the most important thing for me in here is to create a cozy space that the girls love.

Master Bedroom

This will be our bedroom one day (right now we're using it as a storage room - we've been using the guest room). We're planning on building a big wardrobe along the wall on the right to hide the chimney breast and to give us enough storage for both our clothes and shoes. I'm all about turning this room into a grown-up and uber-comfy retreat. 

Guest Room

I haven't got a true before photo for this room so here it is after we stripped the wall paper and removed the carpet. It's pretty tiny (10'7" x 10'11") but we'd love to incorporate some concealed craft storage and dry and sort washing in here when we don't have guests.

Back Garden

The back garden is not huge and is split between two levels (right now the upper level slopes up - we're planning to level it out) but me and Misha have big plans for it - 'Hawaii Garden' is what we're going for - which in our minds means the most tropical looking space we can achieve in the UK...lots of big leaved evergreen plants, colourful flowers, festoon lights and space to play, eat and relax.

We're planning on choosing hard-wearing and low maintenance finishes so we can be relaxed and not too precious and the girls can feel free to play in and use every part of the house. Our budget isn't huge and we'll be saving up week by week so we hope we can DIY as much as possible and find budget friendly options until we have a bit more money to splurge on more high end furniture and finishes. I think our style has already changed a lot since we bought the house so I'm sure it will be a long process of learning what we like and what works for us.

After starting our family in a rented house it's so exciting to think that we can do anything we want and make this house look and function exactly how we want it to. HOMEOWNERSHIP SON. I love it!