New Year ,New Decor.

I know I know blogging on two days consecutively you will think I have nothing else to do.  Have been busy since the return of our Bavaria trip thinking of ideas to make changes around the house. Think I have that itchy feet feeling again. Being a military wife and spending the 15years before we bought this house moving from place to place every 2 years, you seem to get used to gigantic changes in your life and then when you actually purchase a house and don't get that buzz and excitement from the impending changes anymore you miss it. I get this overwhelming feeling probably every 12 to 18 months that some big change needs to happen.

Change needed to happen!! While away on our winter holiday I had lots of time to think about things I would like to do with the house, bearing in mind this is definitely not my forever home I do have to be realistic.

Just before we left for our trip Mr J and I went over to the new housing estate that is being built just to take a look a what was happening over there,(yes we were being nosey!) We couldn't resist a look around the show home and were very impressed by the open plan kitchen,dining and family room. Now when we bought our house we bought off plan as you are lead to believe you then have control to a certain extent of how your house will look. That is as long as you don't want underfloor heating a built in water softening system or want them  not to  put up the wall between your kitchen and dining room!! You were not aloud to think outside of there box.

Anyhow while Mr J and the kids were out skiing one day I decided to redesign the down stairs of our house, on paper of course!  This did involve knocking down walls and moving doorways so not a task I could do as soon as I got home. Something for the future depending on cost and how long we will be here for. Mr J is still changing jobs every 18 month/2 years so who knows where we could be in a years time. A change was needed so it was furniture rearranging time, most of the house has been painted over the last year or so so I really couldn't justify repainting again. My dining room was the start of the rearranging as we had a lot of mismatched wood furniture in there and it was just one of those rooms I didn't really like and struggles to work when we have lots of people around the table. As per usual I jumped in with both feet and forgot to take pictures before i started moving stuff, and when Ariane asked me half way through the process I hadn't even measured to see if there was room to pull off my idea!!

The hutch and the tree truck side table both look the same colour in this picture but they aren't and the chest of drawers in the back ground is an old pine piece that I picked up at an auction a few years ago, none of this matched. Now I don't mind an eclectic mix of styles but this just didn't seem to work. The tree trunk side table had actually been in our lounge room until a few months back ,when I felt the need to rearrange that room the table then didn't have a home.

My plan was to remove both the side table and the drawers and replace them with two sets of book shelves that we had elsewhere in the house. One book shelf was upstairs with all of our old children's books on and the other was outside being used in the garage! I planned to make them look more dresser like by putting curtains over the bottom 2 shelves and to also disguise these areas where I would store less attractive pieces.

Shelf one was emptied and dragged down the stairs as a test piece. The one in the garage was still oak coloured and I knew I wanted to lighten up the room so wanted to see how the white would look. I quickly whipped up a curtain for the bottom and was pleased with how it looked.  Outside to paint the one in the garage and then leave that to dry over night.  My kids are so patient when they know I'm trying to create, they didn't get their dinner till 9.30 pm that night!! 

Breakfast the next morning was a calorie filled affair as we all needed some energy to get us moving. The best croissants ever (from aldi) with speculoos filling and a steaming hot peppermint mocha coffee. When is the UK going to catch up with the whole convenience of American food . Flavoured coffee creamer ,Genius!

For any of you who don't know what speculoos is , it is a creamed version of those nice caramel biscuits you get with your coffee  when you go to nice restaurants. It is so delicious. Note to self, stop eating it straight out of the jar!!

Decided that I was going to use my collection of tea cups and china to decorate the shelves and put the more usable items onto the bottomed covered shelves. This picture makes it look a bit sparse but I think that may have been the angle at which I took the picture.

All of the items I used where bits that I already had around the house. Most of the teas sets were actually stored in our glass fronted bookshelf in the lounge. Two birds with one stone, now I have more space on that bookshelf for books.

Old napkin rings and some mis matched silverware given a link by embellishing with a pair of vintage clip on earrings.

 

odd cups always look pretty when displayed together.

Pine cones real and fabric ones. I made the fabric ones as autumn decor a few years ago,even got the kids to make some as well.

How the dresser looks now.

Garage book shelf painted white and turned into our bar area. Not that we are big drinkers but as wedding presents we had an abundance of crystal glasses. This is the first time in 19 years they have ever been displayed. Urm just noticed it looks like someone has been at the Jack Daniels!!!!

How the whole wall looks now. The wine rack at the end may have left a few scratches on the skirting boards as that was pushed into place but it all fits.  Phew.

The bookshelf that was upstairs obviously needed replacing with something so Ariane and I moved the tree truck side table upstairs. That is one solid and heavy piece of furniture.

How the bookshelf looked on the upstairs hallway.

How the tree trunk side table looks in the hallway. The mirror above it does actually match the table and they were bought together to look just like this.  Some of our beloved handmade furniture pieces we bought while living in Madrid. The mirror has been used in our bedroom since we moved in so I will need to replace that but have got some ideas of what it will be replaced with. More on that later.

Again bits from other places in the house were used to dress the table top. By the way I will be making a curtain to cover all the books on the bottom shelf of the table.

Have seen lots of mirrors on blogland with  wreaths  hanging over them,i liked the idea but felt the need to keep this so you could still use it as a mirror. Old picture frame rescued from the bin at work and a love heart bought for me for my birthday by Jasmine and there you have it. Now I'm off to make that curtain and to sort out where the chest of drawers from the dining room will go.

God bless you all.xx