A Decorative To-Do List

If you're doing up your house and are anything like us, you won't have an immediate budget to start buying curtains, wallpaper, flooring and the latest snazzy dishwasher all within the first weekend of moving in. Writing a master list of the things that need doing really helps to focus on the tasks at hand. So here goes - Some we have already ticked off but I have left in for information's sake.

The Kitchen

• Tiles to be painted - TICK! 
• Painting walls - TICK!
• New flooring (vinyl? currently weighing this up)
• New blind for the kitchen window

The orange tiles just weren't working for us, so as a temporary measure we've painted them with a grey tile paint. You can read my blog about it here! I'm so excited to post the before and after in a few days when the second coat is dry.


The Living Room

• Decide on paint colours
• Laminate flooring to be installed
• Woodchip wallpaper removed and replaced with paint
• Decide on pictures/frames arrangement
• Fit shelves

The living room is a top priority. It's the room where we eat our meals, entertain guests and one of the first rooms to be seen from the hallway when you come through the front door. There is a lot to do here, and I'm sure I'll be posting about the horror of removing the woodchip wallpaper before long. In fact - Does anyone have any tips on that? We'll have to do some Googling! Our laminate flooring has now arrived, but we'd like to strip the walls and paint before we put it down, to avoid paint disasters! You can read about our woodchip wallpaper removal here.


Entrance/Hallways

• White paint
• New stair handrail installed
• Gloss paint on stairs and cupboard doors
• Picture and print placement 

The hallway is currently a delightful shade of grubby beige, which could be lightened up a lot with a lick of white paint. Also, my Mum rightly pointed out that the handrail is less of a handrail and more of a... Piece of wood. So we'll rip that out and put something more suitable in its place.
We're also contemplating doing something with the stairs, along the lines of a dark gloss paint to contrast against the white walls - But the jury is still out on that one.


The Garden

• Paint fence (decide on colour)
• Rip out crazy huge, sun-blocking tree
• Lay down some new grass seeds - TICK!
• Build a little path from the patio to the garage. Dan would like to install little lights along to light the way
• Buy some garden furniture! 

Master Bedroom

• Decide on paint colour - Everything is cream at the moment so we have a blank canvas.
• Install blinds for privacy
• Find a new mirror for the dressing table (was broken in the move!)
• Possibly get some wardrobe organisers to create shelving in the fitted wardrobe. At the moment it's just hanging space.
• New carpet - Maybe?
• Super important - Get windows fixed as they currently do not open! 

Guest/2nd Bedroom

•  Decide on paint/wallpaper colours
• Install blinds for privacy
• Hang pictures

Porch

• De-spider everything
• Lick of white paint on brickwork to spruce it up
• Buy a nice plant for the entryway
• Pick up lamp table from parents house to put the above plant onto!
• New lock needed for inner door and potentially the outer doors too

So there you have it. There's quite a bit to be done, and so far the main work has happened in the kitchen, but we are getting there. Trying not to let myself get daunted as I know some people will have done much bigger renovations! It's mostly the decision-making we are rubbish at - Putting the ideas into practice is easier. 

I will blog again tomorrow with an update of the kitchen. It's now finished other than changing up the handles and putting in new flooring!

- Em