The Master Bedroom

The master bedroom is an utter disgrace! The dresser is full of crap, the bed hasn't been made, washing needs to be folded and put away, washing needs to be moved from the floor to the basket........It really is awful. In comparison the the master bedroom the rest of the house looks immaculate! Quite depressing when you have to climb over crap on the floor just to get into bed. Our bedroom is very small and we have a very large bed, it's also designed stupidily. Which is why our wardrobe lives in the laundry room hehe. The other down side is, people who visit always use the en-suite so they see the disaster area and I get embarassed by it. Anyway, I decided I would tackle the room today, at least clear the floors so I we didn't have to scramble over things.

Here are the disgusting before pictures:

A cuppa to get me started (typically British hehe)

From the door into the bedroom and my beautiful Polly

My side of the bed (the white wire on the floor is so I can plug the dryer in)

The blanket box (off my nan) burtied behind and under washing, the en-suite doorway to the side

{TH}'s side of the bed!

 The top of the dresser

{TH}'s lappy on his side on the bed

Looking up the room from the en-suite door and Polly again 

My top drawer (on my bedside unit) crammed so full my hair dryer doesn't fit in anymore

So where the hell do you start?

I picked up all the dirty washing and threw (yes threw) it into the en-suite (where the washing basket is). I then folded the clean washing and sent the kids to put it away, none of it as mine or {TH}'s. I put the clean bedding in the blanket box. It's not perfectly folded but as Kia would say 'it's better than it was'

The bedding in the blanket box

The inside of the blanket box (originally a travellers chest we think) is beautiful, here's a close up of the paper used to line it

 I then started down {TH}'s side of the bed, getting rid of rubbish and picking stuff up. I wiped all the surfaces down and hoovered.

I then moved on to the dresser, I took everything off the dresser and dumped it on the bed

This left a very dusty dresser

So I gave a wipe down and cleaned it up. It was then time to work out what needed to 'live' on the dresser, out of the pile of junk on the bed. A while ago {TH} made some bowls out of records by melting them in the oven. For some reason (unknown to both {TH} & myself) one had made it's way into the bedroom and filled itself with junk! I wanted to keep this one the dresser as {TH} made it and I knew it would be useful. I decided to put the make up I use most into the record bowl and other stuff in the bag could be stored in the bed (storage top and bottom of the bed) So I wiped the record over and all my make up and in it went. I wiped everything over and dried it before putting it back on the dresser.

 

I then moved over to my side and picked up the bags and clothes off the floor. Clothes went in the en-suite to be washed and my bags were put away in the wardrobe. I emptied the 3 drawers of my bedside unit. 2 drawers have the kids stuff in and the top one had my stuff crammed in. I rehomed the kids stuff, keeping the new school t-shirts in the bottom drawer. That gave me 2 drawers to put all my stuff in.

Middle drawer, has cotton wool and the girls make up that is only to be used under supervision and only for specific occations. I don't want my girls growing up too fast. Also has some bit of mine in there, there's a basket so it keeps stuff together :)

The top drawer has all my hair stuff in, GHD's, hairdryer, sprays and bobbles.

 A quick hoover and I was pretty much done. Moved a few things about and set the clock on the ipod/alarm {TH] picked up the other week and I was done!

 My side

{TH}'s side

{TH}'s side

The dresser

All in all I'm quite pleased with myself

Utility Room

It seems I don't have the pics from the utility room before the washer was moved, I remember taking them but I must have deleted them before I moved them to my pc. Or it's possible that were accidently deleted when I cleaned my hard drive(s) up the other week. Although I am still annoyed with myself for doing this. Oh well lives and learns I guess.

So no before pics but I do have some after pics and can talk you through how it was before.

I found one!!! Just one before picture but it's one

This is before (excuse the washing) My dryer is tucked into the corner with just enough room for the ironing board next to it. Opposite the dryer is the bedroom door and tucked away next to the door is our wardrobe.

After we moved the washer the utility room looks like this

My washer is now where the dryer used to be, but due to the pipes it has to face the doorway to the utility room. Next to the washer is my wardrobe and in the place my wardrobe used to be is my dryer. My washer and dryer are in a right state, we have no idea how our washer got so rusty on the front, but {TH} is going to treat it and give it a makover with some spray paint. My dryer, as you can see in the pic has a huge chunk missing off the top of it, this is where {TH} spilt battery acid on it! Again {TH} is going to fix it and makeit look pretty again.

{TH} added the extention lead part way up the wall, as the sockets in the hallway are hidden by the butchers block and it can be a royal pita moving that each time I need to plug the hoover or iron in. 

The curtains are the old ones from the dining room, the fit there really nicely and although don't keep the noise of the washer or down out they make sure it's hidden from general view.

I don't know if you remember a few weeks ago my hoover bust and we bought a nice shiny new Dyson, well when {TH} went to the auction the other nigt he picked up a dyson city vac for just £10!!! ($16). It's in excellent condition, a little dirty and some of the tools are missing, but it works brilliantly and is great on my wood and tiles floors. We are going to keep them both he got the city vac to make it easier to do the stairs and it now lived on top of my washing machine. Once I get my shelf (bucket) above the washer the city vac will move to living above the dryer instead.

I'm (we're) getting there slowly and I'm feeling a happier person for it all, now if I could just get those 'hot spots' sorted (forever) I'd be even happier lol

The Launchpad (part 1)

My launchpad is now technically 2 spaces. The main enternace are, where coat hoos, shelf for keys and the mirror are. Then the 2nd part, where the kids tv and console is (under the stairs), the butchers block and dart board are. I've cleaned and tidied the first part. We have some damp that is becoming black mold, I can't clean this myself so I'm going to get {TH} to grab some special cleaners and get him to do, I also need to speak to our landlady and see if we can fix what ever is causing the damp. It's either directly outisde the front door or in the garage.

Before Pics

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 After the coats where moved

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After hoovering and wiping all the area's down. There are some stains on my front door that just won't shift, I don't even know what they are but no amount of scrubbing was shifting them!

I ran out of glass cleaner and didn't have the ingrediants to make my own, so I wiped my mirror down as best I could and dried it off with a micro-fibre cloth. It's still streaky, but it's clean. I will grab some glass cleaner next time I go the the shopping center (or will add it to {TH}'s shopping list).

I rehung the coats, bags and hats in a tidy order and left a space for {TH}'s (he's out at the moment). Left the landlady's mail on the window sill, I'm going to grab a mail rack next time I'm at the shops. I also removed all un-nessassry junk from the shelf, leaving just the front door key. The yellow post it on the door, has to stay there as it's to remind {TB) to lock and post the key through when he goes out. He refuses to have his own key (he's 17) but also forgets to lock the door, so this post it has to live there so he remembers.  I moved my posh coat from being hung on a ahnger on the coat rack to the wardrobe. I think that alone makes the coats look a little neater.

After Pics

For some reason blogger has rotated this image and I can't get it the right way

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Part 2 of the launchpad should be completed soon 

The Dining Room

Following on from my previous post here are the before and after pictures of the dining room. The corner thats totally empty is where my bookcase is going when it arrives on Tuesday

Before Pics

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You can't actually see the table with console and tv as the kids were playing it when I took the pics lol

After Pics

(yes my desk is still a mess lol but its a constant work in progress)

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I will take some more pics on Tuesday once my bookcase is here and filled my books and the games/dvds that surround my fire have been moved too. Finally I feel it is coming together nicely. It's taking time and we are doing it bit by bit when we can afford to, but all in all I'm happy with how things are plodding along.

{TH} is hopefully going to the diy store tomorrow to get the bits needed to sort the doors out. As you will notice from the various pics, there are no doors between the lounge and dining room or the dining room and launchpad.When we moved in there were bi-fold doors in the both these places, however they were awful. They have fake wood in the center and patterned perspex top and bottom. So {TH} took them down while we got together the money to make them look better. We now have somemoney aside to do at least one set of the doors (hopefully both). The plan is to get very thin ply or mdf and cover it in sticky back plastic. Not sure if we're going for a wood look or something plain, but hopefully by Tuesday I should have at least one set of doors back up. I'm at college tomorrow evening so {TH}is taking advantage and doing the work while I'm out. He'll go get all the stuff in the day and once the kids go to bed start work on putting the doors back together. I can't wait.


Now all I have left to do is convice {TH} that the chimney breast wall in the dining room would look much better painted purple to match the flowers on the curtains

The Lounge

Phew! The lounge is almost complete. My mum is no longer having the snakes, so we are going to sell them. They will be advertised for sale on Monday and hopefully will be gone soon. We have moved their tank to where my pc used to be and moved the rest of furniture round. When the snakes go, we will put a table in the corner with the lamp on. Then all we need to do is paint the walls, {TH} and I are still arguing trying to agree on a colour for the chimney breast. We've agreed to a cream on the other 3 walls. I suggested we get some new curtains and cushion covers first and then we can paint the chimney breast to match, rather than painting and then trying to find curtains and cushion covers to match. We are still umming and arrring over whether to replace the very 70's carpet with something plain or buy a large rug to cover the majority of it. We both agree that we dislike the carpet that is currently down. We did manage to 'thin' things out in the lounge and pop up somenew pictures. {TH} dismantled his car (its a racing seat I bought him a few years back for playing on the PS3) which took up a corner (and looked ugly). We moved the small stereo we have into the bedroom. The games and dvd's that clutter my fireplace will be moved Tuesday when books get moved to their new home (more on that below)

Before Pics of the Lounge

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After Pics of the Lounge

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While working on sorting the lounge out, it was inevitable that we would need to tackle the dining room and launchpad too as in typical fashion everything gets moved from one room to another while be sorted.

In the dining room, we have pushed the table right back into the corner of the room and  put 2 of the chairs in the garage. These days its rare that all 5 ({TB} rarely eats at home) sit down together, so we just kept 4 chairs out. When we do all sit together it's not problem to either bring a chair in or use my desk chair. So with the table sitting snug in the corner it gave up more open space in the dining room. My desk is sitting in the opposite corner to the table. In the corner between the doors we had a plant (you can see pics in this post HERE) unfortunatly despite {TH}'s best efforts this plant was very poorly, I know it looks very healthy in the pic but he was poorly. It was losing leaves left, right and center and even the new shoots were dropping. So {TH} has popped him in the garden, in a sheltered area but still getting sunlight. We will see how it fairs out there. This left a space in the dining room which looked just too bare. Much to {TH}'s annoyance I decided it would be perfect for a bookcase. {TH} wasn't happy as for days I've been moaning about wanting more space, I get space and want to fill it lol. I found a nice slimline tall bookcase that arrives on Tuesday. This means the books in the living room can be moved and the books cuurently cluttering my desk will have a a home too. As it's slim it won't be an obstruction and I think will suit the corner just lovely.

This is the bookcase we have decided on. We went for a dark wood to match the fire, as thats quite a dark wood.

We also took the kids tv and console from in the bay window. It turned out the tv they were using was too big to sit nicely under the stairs on the small table, so we swapped it for a portable we had in the garage. Until I can get them some bean bags they have cushions off my sofa, but the kids are happy with it. They are not in the way and can have sounds on their games now without it bugging everyone else. 

{TH}'s pc has gone. We got a buyer for that this morning. My mum came round to pick up the case I got her for new phone and drop off the most fabby pics for me, just by chance we asked if she knew anyone and she said she could do with a new one. So its gone to my mum, we didn't get as much as we wanted originally as we said my mum could have it cheaper. We're happy and she's happy and thats what matters. Plus as she pointed out to me, we've had over £1000 ($1,625) worth of artwork from her in the last few months (2 originals and 4 framed prints). Haven't found anyone who wants the desk yet, but as it's dismantled its not really taking up much room in the garage.